Granted, it's only a 1% increase, but the music industry is looking for any cause to rejoice at this point. There's more though, according to Nielsen, “digital album sales are up 19 percent through the first six months over 2010 and are on pace to set a new sales record at the end of the year”. More than 660.8 million digital units (meaning songs) were sold in the first half of 2011 as well, an 11 percent increase from the summer of last year.
Now there are a number of interesting points to consider here.
1) It seems that catalog sales have spurred this slight album growth. Catalog is what's always been hit the hardest by the digital revolution, so it's certainly an interesting twist when you see growth in this area.
2) Considering that music in the cloud has begun and consumers are getting used to streaming and subscription, it's hard to believe that any kind of music sales have grown. Of course, the big test is when iCloud launches. Let's see if these numbers hold by the end of the year. Then there's cause for celebration.
3) Spotify hasn't launched yet. The word is that Spotify will launch in the States any day now, and by all accounts, it's a game changer. Add to the fact that they'll be partnering with Facebook so it will be built-in to the social network, and music download sales might actually take a big hit.
All that being said, I predict that music consumption will be higher than ever, and total revenue might climb. Of course, as I've stated in so many previous posts, it looks like the artist will get screwed out of most of this income, at least in the beginning, as most of this new found income goes to the labels. But make no mistake, we're right in the middle of a music business revolution. Feel it. Enjoy it. Make it work for you.
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experiment where they asked their fans to pay what they wanted. It turns out that the average fan paid $6.84 and the band ended up making more money than they ever thought possible, far exceeding their recording costs. Then when the CD was released it immediately went triple platinum (sales of 3 million). I'd say that worked out pretty well.
album where the 
," has grossed more than $72 million to date domestically and $189 million in foreign markets for a worldwide take over more than $261 million. It ranks as the #2 music documentary of all-time behind Justin Bieber's "
The film has also generated nearly $45 million in DVD sales in the U.S. 
has sold just over 510,000 copies to date, while the 
collection has moved nearly 1 million copies to date in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, remarkable numbers considering the state of the music business and the economy. Then in May, Jackson lodged his first #1 on the 
." 
" video game worldwide. 
