Digital Music Gaining Steam

Already this year, four artists have broken Rihanna's sales record of 9.9 million for digital tracks that she sold in 2008 according to Soundscan. The artists that passed her are no surprise since they are particularly hot these days:
     Michael Jackson (11.3 million),
     Lady Gaga (11.1 million),
     Black Eyed Peas (10.3 million)
and Taylor Swift (10 million)

Next week, the 2008 digital album sales total of 65 million will be broken, as well as the mark of 1 billion total track sales, which shows that despite what some industry pundits had predicted, the digital side of the business is still growing.

But CDs are still selling, with 5 artists this week (Carrie Underwood, Michael Jackson, Andrea Bocelli, the cast of Glee, and Sony Music's That's What I Call Music compilation) over 100k.

Speaking of Michael Jackson, his “This Is It” companion album — which is really an album of hits — sold a little over 200,000 copies last week and went gold, which means that it’s sold over 500,000 copies in two weeks. This makes you scratch your head a little since another greatest hits album from Jackson, “Number Ones,” sold about 33,000 copies as well. At least for now, people can't get enough of his music and are willing to part with their cash for both hard and soft product.