Josh Groban was the biggest selling solo artist, with sales greater than 4.8 million albums and the Eagles were the biggest selling group in 2007 with sales of 3.6 million. The good news was also on the digital front. Digital album sales increased 53% to 50 million units sold. Digital track sales increased 45% with 844.2 units sold.
Though all genres showed a drop in sales, Rap and R&B continue their decline. Rap sales dropped a staggering 30% and R&B fell 18.3%. What the labels trying to pass off as rock dropped 12.5%. It's the older releases via digital that helped fuel the industry in 07. Catalog sales jumped 64% (22.9 mill) and "deep" Catalog sales increased 63% (16.0) with "current" digital sales only increasing 46% (27.1). A lesson can be learned there.
Here some facts released with the report followed by the Top 10 Albums of 2007: Music purchases in 2007 reached 1.4 Billion, the third consecutive year music sales have exceeded 1 billion; 1.2 billion (2006) vs. 1 billion (2005) . Music sales exceeded 58.4 million in the final week of 2007, representing the biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous record was Christmas week 2006 with 47.4 million music purchases. Overall Album sales (including Albums and Track Equivalent Album sales) declined 9.5% compared to 2006. Total album sales declined 15% compared to 2006. Consistent with the previous three years, 20% of total album sales occurred during the Holiday Season (last 6 weeks of year).
More than 840 million digital tracks were purchased during 2007; an increase of 45% over 2006. Digital album sales reached the 50 million for 2007; up 53% over the previous year and accounted for 10% of total album sales compared to 5.5% in 2006.
In the final reporting week of 2007 the following sales records were broken: Digital track sales surpassed 42.9 million. The previous sales record was 30.1 million, week of 12/24 -12/31/06.
Digital album sales this week fell just shy of the two million mark with sales of 1,920,000 sales; breaking the previous record of 1.2 million (12/31/06) .
Flo Rida's track "Low feat. T-Pain" set the mark for the biggest selling week for an individual Digital Track, with sales of 467,000 (previous record was Rihanna's "Umbrella at 276,000 sales). Note that Chris Brown's "Kiss Kiss" track sold 277,000 downloads which also broke the previous record held by Rihanna.
The first time a digital song (combining all versions of the same song) sold more than 300,000 downloads in a week. Flo Rida's song "Low feat. T-Pain" is the new record holder for biggest selling week for a Digital Song with sales of 467,000 this week. Fergie's "Fergalicious" held the previous record with sales of 295,000. Timbaland's digital song "Apologize" also broke the previous record with sales of 319,000 this week.
In 2007, there were 9 different digital songs with sales that exceeded 2 million compared to one in 2006 ("Bad Day" by Daniel Powter - 2,015,000).
41 Digital Songs exceeded the 1 million sales mark for the year compared to 22 digital songs in 2006 and only 2 digital songs in 2005.
Fergie was the biggest selling digital artist in 2007 with 7.5 million track sales.
There were more than 390,000 different physical albums that sold at least one copy over the Internet during 2007.
Physical Internet album sales reached a new record high with sales of of 30.1 million unit sales; an increase of 2% over 2006 year-end total (29.1).
2007 TOP TEN SELLING ALBUMS
1 Noel / Josh Groban 3,699,000
2 Soundtrack / High School Musical 2 2,957,000
3 Long Road Out of Eden / Eagles 2,608,000
4 As I Am / Alicia Keys 2,543,000
5 Daughtry / Daughtry 2,497,000
6 Soundtrack/ Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley 2,489,000
7 Minutes To Midnight / Linkin Park 2,099,000
8 Dutchess / Fergie 2,064,000
9 Taylor Swift / Taylor Swift 1,951,000
10. Graduation / Kanye West 1,892,000
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