As the singles chart reaches its fiftieth anniversary sales of singles in the UK have dropped over 14% from last year, putting them at their lowest point for at least 10 years. Despite the big single selling power of Gareth Gates, Kylie Minogue and the Junkie XL Elvis remix, only 54 million singles were bought in the last 12 months - nine million fewer than the previous year. It’s a considerable drop from the last peak in 1997 when 87 million singles were shifted.
While music downloading is sure to be blamed, the news isn’t necessarily all that bad, especially for the major labels. Single sales have always fluctuated (the last low was in 1992 when annual sales were down to 53 million) and the peak five years ago may have been down to the predominance of mainstream dance music in the charts then – people are more likely to buy a big dance anthem as a single than wait for it to appear on an album (often there's no album to wait for). Plus the fact for most majors the single has become a marketing tool – a loss leader used to promote album releases. As has been argued before, if MP3 downloads eventually destroy single sales it could actually save the major labels money.
With all that in mind it is album sales figures that are sure to occupy the industry’s accountants – and there many be some good news there. Despite a fall in album sales earlier in the year, sales for the last twelve months seem to be up 2% on last year, and that’s not counting the pre-Christmas sales of big releases by bankable acts and the plethora of greatest hits in the stores just now.