Despite album sales in the UK reaching an all time high in terms of units, music industry revenues are still down. The industry blames CD price wars and the continuing slump in single sales for leaving record label revenues down 4.1% this year to June.
On the upside the latest figures from the BPI show that during the same period album sales grew to 228.3m units; up nearly 3% on the previous 12 months. The report says: "It is clear that cheap retail prices on offer to the consumer combined with strong new release titles are sustaining the UK album market at a high level."
Singles suffered a 26% drop in both volume and value in the first half of the year contributing the the overall revenues fall, and perhaps further aiding the case for scrapping single releases altogether.