Music Industry

How Many Albums Do You Need to Sell to Have a #1 Record in America This Week? Lower. No, Lower. Lower…

This week is another indication of how people are moving away from buying their music in physical form and opting instead to go with streaming.

Looking at the American SoundScan charts for the week ending January 12, 2017, the soundtrack to the film La La Land finished on top by selling 29,893 copies. That isn’t a typo. That’s how many copies of the album were sold via CD and digital download.

It wasn’t that long ago that an album with ten times that number would be lucky to finish in the top five. Now Metallica’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct scrapped at #10 with a hair over 10,000 copies. All albums below that mark sold less than 10K And scrolling down the chart, we see it was possible to make the Top 200 by selling 737 records.

In a country of 320 million. Wow.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39303 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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