Digital album sales in the United States went up to 811,000 sold in the week ending March 26. It comprises 49.1% of all-format sales, the highest percentage for digital albums in seven months. This, despite the plummet in the overall sales of albums in the country in the past few weeks.
In the week ending March 19, the total album sales across all formats (CD, digital album download, vinyl LP, cassette, etc.) was at record-low 1.523 million copies, according to Nielsen Music and MRC Data. The following week, it increased by 1.558 million copies. Although it increased by 2.3%, it is still the second-worst week, in terms of album sales.
Both overall album sales and digital were boosted by the arrival of After Hours, the latest album of The Weeknd. The album was launched last March 20 and made 275,000 album sales.
Download sales of older albums went up. Digital album sales jumped up 18.8% to 389,000 sold. The sales is the biggest week for digital catalog album or older albums in 2020. It is also the biggest week outside of the Holiday season.
The large chunk of sales in digital catalog albums comes from the late Kenny Rogers. The singer's albums has sold 17,000 sets up to March 26. Rogers' album sales contributed to the rise of the album sales in the week until March 26.
Physical album sales suffer
If the digital album sales went up, physical album sales went south. In the same week, sales of CDs and cassette albums went down 23.7% to a new low of 747,000 copies sold. The number is lower than its previous one, with 979,000 copies sold in a week ending up to March 19. Billboard added.
Overall sales of albums were affected by quarantine measures due to the coronavirus outbreak. The people who buy their albums were ordered to stay at home, and some small music stores were closed temporarily until further notice.
Album sales have been in decline for years. During the late 90s and early 2000s, the album sales mostly in form of cassette and CD were being sold at more than 10 million in a single week. Record sales began to decline as music listeners moved to streaming services like Spotify, YouTube, and many more.
On the other hand, vinyl albums resurged. 2019 made a 14th year of growth for vinyl sales. 18.84 million copies of vynil albumes were sold last year. In 2020, 4.88 million copies of vinyl albums have been sold so far.
Pandemic affects the industry
Due to the coronavirus, the future of the music industry is uncertain, and will be based on the end of the pandemic, according to We Rave You's article. However, despite the virus, many artists have releasing new albums like Calm from 5 Seconds of Summer, Pearl Jam's Gigaton, Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia, Sam Hunt's Southside, Alicia Keys' Alicia, and Notes on a Conditional by The 1975.
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