With music magazines powering down their printing presses, record companies slashing expense accounts, venerable chains like Tower Records closing shop, and even A-list pop stars failing to fill seats in this nation's concert venues (even with Groupon's help), it seems clear that the music industry is in serious trouble. But rock 'n' roll is not dead, dear readers. According to an encouraging mid-year report by Nielsen SoundScan, album sales experienced their first boost since SoundScan started tracking digital sales in 2004--up 8.5 percent from last year's all-time lows. This is good news, and on top of that, this week
Eminem became the first artist to sell 1 million digital copies of a single album. Physical album sales may be down 11 percent--that's the bad news--but digital album sales are in fact up 19 percent, so maybe downloading (at least the legal kind) isn't killing music after all.
Eminem's aptly titled
Recoverypassed the 1 million digital mark this week; of this milestone, his manager
Paul Rosenbergdeclared in a happy statement: "Over the years, we've made a concerted effort to engage Em's online fanbase, so this achievement is especially rewarding."
Lady Gaga's
The Fame is close to joining Eminem, with more than 900,000 digital sales and counting, but it's looking likely that
Adelewill actually be the next member of the million-album-download club, since her sophomore smash
21 has already sold a whopping 992,000 digital copies in just 19 weeks.
With music magazines powering down their printing presses, record companies slashing expense accounts, venerable chains like Tower Records closing shop, and even A-list pop stars failing to fill seats in this nation's concert venues (even with Groupon's help), it seems clear that the music industry is in serious trouble. But rock 'n' roll is not dead, dear readers. According to an encouraging mid-year report by Nielsen SoundScan, album sales experienced their first boost since SoundScan started tracking digital sales in 2004--up 8.5 percent from last year's all-time lows. This is good news, and on top of that, this week Eminem became the first artist to sell 1 million digital copies of a single album. Physical album sales may be down 11 percent--that's the bad news--but digital album sales are in fact up 19 percent, so maybe downloading (at least the legal kind) isn't killing music after all.
Eminem's aptly titled Recoverypassed the 1 million digital mark this week; of this milestone, his manager Paul Rosenbergdeclared in a happy statement: "Over the years, we've made a concerted effort to engage Em's online fanbase, so this achievement is especially rewarding." Lady Gaga's The Fame is close to joining Eminem, with more than 900,000 digital sales and counting, but it's looking likely that Adelewill actually be the next member of the million-album-download club, since her sophomore smash 21 has already sold a whopping 992,000 digital copies in just 19 weeks.