Good news everybody. Well, assuming everybody has at least one share in a record company. Anyway, the British music industry is doing very well thank you very much with BPI figures for the second quarter of the year showing that record sales are up, that, thanks to the growth of digital, singles sales are at their highest for six years and, not only that, British artists in particular are selling well, with over half of the Top 100 and Top 10 best selling albums of the last quarter coming from home grown talent. Hurrah, I tell you.
Commenting on the figures, BPI top guy Peter Jamieson told CMU: "The British record industry is providing music fans with a great range of new and exciting acts while the expanding digital music market is giving them an enormous choice as to where, when and how they buy their music. Meanwhile, record companies' enthusiastic embrace of new digital formats has helped the single find a new lease of life, and the British singles chart is more exciting than it has been for years."
On the downside, compilation album sales did dip again, though the decline wasn't as dramatic as in recent quarters. As commented here previously, generic (ie non curated) compilation album formats are sure to decline as digital single sales rise, with people able to cost effectively compile their own compilations of classic and current hits via iTunes et al.