2016: Worst Year For Album Sales

The worst year since 1991, that is. Pitchfork explains: ‘By one measure, the music industry hasn’t been this bad in 25 years. Album sales for the first six months of the year were their lowest since SoundScan (now Nielsen Music) started keeping track in 1991. Overall, U.S. album sales dropped to 100.3 million—a 13.6% drop compared with the same 2015 time period. However, Billboard estimates revenue has climbed 8.9% to $1.98 billion so far in 2016, though it notes some indie labels have said those estimates overstate income from streaming. That rise is partly due to streaming, which jumped 58.7% to 208.9 billion songs.’

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