Remember that time 32 years ago when the record industry was in a slump and Michael Jackson released Thriller to save everybody? Labels better hope Taylor Swift's 1989 is like that. Album sales are down 14 percent (still) and track sales are down 13 percent (still), and while streaming revenues are growing, they're not enough to keep those CEO bonuses afloat in the post-CD era.
Related Taylor Swift Rolling Stone Cover
Cover Story: The Reinvention of Taylor Swift
CAN XMAS ALBUMS BE FAR BEHIND?: Big-time star power finally arrives for the holiday shopping season – Lady Gaga and Kenny Chesney last week, Prince and Lady Antebellum this week, Taylor Swift at the end of this month. Then again, Lady Gaga isn't really Lady Gaga at the moment. Her duets project Cheek to Cheek, co-starring 88-year-old and still impossibly suave crooner Tony Bennett, is a delightful little album – but it isn't a mega-hit. It makes its chart debut at Number One with 131,000 copies, a respectful number in these days of sunsetting CD sales, and enough to overcome Chesney's The Big Revival (Number Two, 130,000) and Barbra Streisand's second-week Partners (which drops 35 percent, to Number Three, with 127,000 copies).
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...-year-20141001
everyone knows its coming yet ppl are still fighting over album sales
