P!nk scores Australia's biggest-selling album of 2010
.. with only 200.000 copies sold.
Quote:
PINK has scored Australia's biggest-selling album of 2010 after just seven weeks of release.
Pink's Greatest Hits So Far sold more than 200,000 copies in Australia last year.
That was enough to beat Susan Boyle's debut I Dreamed a Dream, 2009's top-selling album and No.2 last year.
Pink's album sold 70,000 copies the week before Christmas and continues to top the chart.
To demonstrate how far record sales dipped last year, SuBo sold close to half a million albums to be 2009's No.1 album; Pink's year-end figures are only half that.
Australia's biggest-selling album of 2010 selling only 200,000 copies is a worrying trend, but the music industry suffered declining sales across the globe.
UK sales fell 7 per cent on 2009 and US sales by 12.8 per cent.
Paul Cashmere of music website undercover said it was no surprise Pink had the biggest selling record of the year.
"She also had the biggest impact on Australians in years with her last tour," he said.
"The centrepiece of the music industry used to be the album and now it is the concert ticket.
"The business has changed. Now big shows create big albums, big albums used to create big shows."
But rock songs almost died in 2010 - it is not until No.47 that one song is featured, the hit Plans by Birds of Tokyo.
While the major record labels put the lack of rock tunes down to the cyclical nature of contemporary music and the dominance of pop radio, pundits believe it signals a generational switch to downloading.
Kids love the pop and urban music radio feeds them or they discover it via online video websites and then download those songs, legally or illegally.
The world's biggest-selling album last year was Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster, with 5.8 million sales globally.
Boyle had two of last year's top five sellers in Australia.
The biggest-selling Australian album was brother and sister duo Angus and Julia Stone, whose Down the Way was the year's seventh biggest record.
Australians had a harder time selling singles last year.
Biggest local single was Sydney dance act Yolanda Be Cool and D-Cup whose international hit We Speak No Americano lobbed at No.34 in the end of year list.
