Photo by Ryan Sahb
The music industry’s sales numbers have been discouraging for years now, but last week they hit a new low. According to Nielsen Soundscan, last week was officially the worst week of album sales since Soundscan started in 1994. In total, a record-setting total of only 4.98 million new and back-catalog albums were sold in the week ending on May 30, 2010.
This is a major drop from the last week of May in 2009, which showed sales of 5.76 million, and it certainly contrasts the record for most albums sold in a week: 45.4 million in December 2000. With the emergence of the internet as way to distribute music (both legally and otherwise), the last decade has been rough for album sales, and now sales are at a historic low point. Although accurate tallies are not available from before 1994, Billboard estimates that this could be the lowest single-week sales since the 1970s.
Jim Urie, Distribution president of Universal Music Group, blamed internet piracy for the lack of sales, but expressed optimism, saying “June will be big. Look at all the big records coming out, including Sara McLachlan, Drake, Miley Cyrus, Eminem and Jack Johnson.”
[Via Billboard]
