Album sales have been in steady decline since 2010, when digital sales and downloads first began to overtake their analogue counterparts. In the US, annual album sales fell by about 12% in 2010, recovering slightly a year later when Adele's 21 stormed the charts to become 2011's bestselling album overall.
In 2012, album sales dropped by 4% – even with another bumper year for Adele – then dropped by 8% in 2013. Weekly sales of less than 5m units was rare before 2010, when retailers shifted less than 5m albums per week on a total of four occasions. Last year, however, weekly US album sales fell below 5m units a total of 18 times.
According to early January data, digital album and track downloads also declined over the course of 2013 – for the first time since 2001.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/j ... ever-level
only 5 legit platinum hip hop artists of the last 2 years: Eminem, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis... Even nicki minaj is stuck at 850k
