Remember when Adele released her album 25 and it made a ton of money from selling a ton of copies and everybody was happy because new music was selling again. Well, despite the 7.4 million copies Adele’s album sold in 2015, for the first time ever old albums outsold new albums.
That is to say, new albums were outsold by “catalog” albums, which are albums that were released over 18 months ago. Catalog albums outsold new albums by 4.3 million copies. For reference’s sake, 10 years ago new albums outsold old albums by 150 million copies. Even last year, new albums outsold old ones by four million copies. Of course, overall albums sales are also down from last year, but that’s to be expected.
Now, digital album sales still sees new albums outpacing catalog albums, but when it comes to physical album sales, old albums are dominating. This probably speaks to the proliferation of vinyl album sales, where one is more likely to get an older album. Additionally, these sales don’t take into account album streaming. So, if you go check out new release on Spotify, then you may be part of the reason old albums are now the king of music sales.
Evidently, Adele’s magic only goes so far.
(Via AV Club)
