Comments on: Music sales for 2008 ride digital coattails

Industry tracker Nielsen says total music sales were up 10 percent year over year, with strong growth in the digital realm. Also: a comeback of sorts for vinyl.

[Henry_Gordon_Jago]

So now the important question. Who sold the most cassettes?

[FinderGateway]

I manage a music related site and we saw quite a bit of interest in subscription services this year - eMusic, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.

Its great to see consumers getting more comfortable with the technology.

- FG
http://www.MusicDownloadFinder.com

[jonathan_bennion]

Wonder what is still driving demand for digital albums, in favor of artists who release a new track every few weeks?

Length of track and interactivity could be a blast for the Beyonces, AC/DCs, and Lil Waynes of tomorrow..

[GardenLobster]

I'm glad everyone's coming around on this. You pay for convenience, so if paying for iTunes or AmazonMP3 to organize and manage your collection becomes easier than snagging stuff off Limewire or a torrent, people will buy the songs. I recently got an iPod and have dabbled a bit not only with transferring all my old CD's onto it, but actually buying a few songs. Interesting to have the full song info and the cover art for once. It's much easier to purchase songs individually than have to go back and delete tracks I don't like on an album. Not all songs are good, and not everyone likes them in the same way, so being able to just get what you want off of an album is nice.

The thing driving digital albums is, they are cheaper than physical CD's and often have a "bulk discount" attached to them. You can either purchase the songs at .79-.99 cents each, but it may be more cost effective just to buy the album at $7.99, depending on how many songs you want from it and how many are on there. Yeah you get tracks you didn't really care for, but you get the ones you wanted for less than doing it individually.

Back in the day, when digital music first came out, you could make personal mix CD's with your spankin' new CD burner. Remember? Last night I took each of those mix CD's and made a playlist for my iPod. The digital revolution is so nice and organized. :) Ugh...now tonight I have to clean those stacks of CD's off my desk - put em back in their bulky catalogs and haul them back to a closet somewhere...

[Boyisageek]

Are there room in the industry for online music magazines like TheEargasm.com - http://www.theeargasm.com ?

[xrslrnce]

These are the top selling artists?
Jeeeeez, how pathetic is that!?!
No wonder the industry is in trouble, all the stuff they have pushed to the top is garbage!

[D3vildog699]

Viva la Vida is not garbage...

Neither is Metallica.... or Jason Mraz... all the others, yeah you're right. Trash.

[MSSlayer]

Metallica leads the trash parade.

If you ever wanted to hear poseurs play something slightly resembling metal, Death Magnetic is for you!

Jason Mraz..trash

Viva la vida...trash

coldplay...trash

Everything on those lists, without exception is trash.

What is tragic is that the new CD from The Damned won't get any publicity.