- Music
- 07 Jul 16
The wake of the digital streaming era is here in full and it is here to stay.
Album sales in America have plummeted to an all time low according to the latest figures.
Alternatively though the rise in streaming services such as TIDAL, Spotify and Apple Music have seen a massive increase in the past six months. With some of the world's biggest artists like Rihanna, Kanye West and Beyoncé releasing their works exclusively onto these services weeks before they're available on the shelves, that is probably a main factor in the streaming success. The only artist to boast solid album sales of over 1 million is Drake's Views.
With a fall in hardcopy album sales barely scraping 100.3m, over on the streaming side of things there's a revenue that boasts a rise of 8.9% to $1.5 billion. Streaming music in general has seen a phenomenal upsurge of 58.7%. The decline in CD sales has slowed down notably and with vinyl stores coming into fashion now, sales are expected to rise to over 3 million in 2016.
As of yet, we've no figures that indicate the metaphoric rise and fall of hardcopy sales vs. streaming services but the US figures are indicative of the evolving way we consume our music.