Another Tough Year for the Music Business

As 2009 begins, the music business finds itself starting the year in a difficult position, once again. Music sales declined for the seventh time in eight years, the Wall Street Journal reports. Sales of compact discs fell by 20 percent. Even album sales, which traditionally do well in the last three months of the year, also faltered.

The decline is the continuation of a long trend of falling sales for CDs and albums as consumers download music online.

From the Journal:

Despite their languishing sales, CDs remain the most profitable and common medium for recorded music sales, accounting for nearly 85% of album sales. Their decline—to 360.6 million in 2008, from 449.2 million a year earlier—has hurt the four major record labels as they try to migrate to digital sales on services like Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store, which in 2008 surpassed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as the world’s largest music retailer. U.S. album sales including digital downloads fell 14% for the year, while factoring in individual song downloads, sales were off 8.5%.

Here’s the music that did do well, according to the Journal:

The biggest album of the year was Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III,” which sold almost 2.9 million copies. Other top sellers included albums from Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida,” Taylor Swift’s “Fearless,” Kid Rock’s “Rock N’ Roll Jesus” and AC/DC’s “Black Ice.”

Just something to think about as you download a song from iTunes today to mitigate that hangover.