Worst Week for Album Sales in Decades

According to Billboard, last week’s album sales were the lowest ever recorded in the Nielsen SoundScan era (1991 – present). Coming in at just 3.97 million albums sold, the week marked another troubling milestone: the first week in that same time span that album sales dropped below 4 million.

This is not the first time August has brought bad news for the music industry because, as Billboard points out, third quarter is typically the worst time of the year for album sales. It’s an alarming jump, though, as last year’s reporting lamented dipping below 5 million albums sold in a week, a difference of one million in just a year (this time last year, sales for the week were 4.88 million). So far, only five weeks in 2014 have seen sales break 5 million.

What used to affect primarily physical releases is now hurting digital sales, as well. Overall album sales are down 14.6% and digital sales have dropped 11.7% in 2014, due largely to consumers increasingly turning to streaming services like Spotify instead of purchasing music in any format.

It’s likely that we’ll have this same conversation come next August, as it’s become a trend for the current year’s lowest week to dictate the following year’s high point.