The sales charts don’t mean what they used to.
July 21st, 2008 by Eric Snider in TrendsI just stumbled across some stats that really show how CD sales have tapered off in the last decade or so:
1994: Tom Petty’s Wildflowers album went triple platinum (in excess of 3-million in sales). It reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200.
2006: Petty’s Highway Companion fell short of gold (500,000 in sales) while reaching No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
Both CDs came out when Soundscan technology — which records sales via bar codes — was available. So for the mathematically impaired, this means that Petty’s most recent disc charted four positions higher than his release a dozen years ago, but sold less than one-sixth the units.
Next time you hear about an act entering the Top 5 on the Billboard album sales chart, don’t assume that its moving a lot of copies.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Wow. Record sales are slumping compare to 14 years ago? Next thing your going to tell me is that gas prices are rising.
Thanks for the scoop, Bob Woodward. How deep did you have to dig to mine that nugget?
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm
You certainly provide alot of truly meaningful dialogue, don’t you, Joey?