Over the weekend, freshly published data from Nielsen SoundScan left digital music proponents singing the blues.
According to the information presented, 2014 was not a banner year for digital music.
“Sales of downloaded albums and songs plummeted in the U.S. in 2014,” the WSJ reported following the publication of data from Nielsen SoundScan.
What’s behind the dip? Overall, there are many contributing factors, not the least of which include strong vinyl-record sales and red-hot streaming services.
“Paid downloads of albums and songs declined 9% and 12% respectively,” the report reads. “American consumers bought 257 million albums in 2014, 106.5 million of them downloads.”
Although the sales dip is notable, most headlines today are reflecting a somewhat isolated tidbit from the report, which is data pointing to the biggest album of the year.
“The biggest album of the year in the U.S. was Taylor Swift ’s ‘1989,’” the report concludes, “which sold more than 3.66 million copies.”
