New York City is the number one market for country album sales, according to Nielsen. The Big Apple bested even Nashville when looking at the sheer number of albums sold. Nashville came in at number six, while the top three was rounded out by Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth. This year to date, 31.8 million physical and digital country albums have been sold nationwide.

New York owes its top spot more to population than popularity. When looking at music sales by genre, the South and Midwest stayed true to their country roots. Music lovers in Charleston-Huntington, W.V., were the most likely to buy country albums, and Nashville holds the number five spot in this list. Nashville residents were nearly twice as likely to buy country albums as the general U.S. population.

Incidentally, New York is the only top media market not to have its own country radio station. Year to date, country album sales account for 13 percent of all album sales in the U.S. Country music ranks fourth among the top music genres, behind Rock, R&B and Alternative. Digital country music album purchasing is up 31 percent year-to-date, greater than the overall digital music album growth of 20 percent.

“The consumption of music continues to be greater than ever,” says Eric Weinberg, President, Entertainment for Nielsen. “The sales figures for the first half of 2011 show the increased purchasing behavior is being driven by digital album sales, which are up nearly 20 percent over 2010, and the increased purchasing of catalog [older] titles.” Weinberg said, also noting that “While digital music sales continue to see strong growth, the CD still accounts for two out of every three album purchases.”

Sales figures of note in 2011 include:

• Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling” became the first digital song to sell more than 7 million tracks on March 20.
• On July 3, Eminem’s Recovery became the first digital album to sell more than one million units; Adele’s 21 is on track to surpass a million units next week. Through the first six months of the year, Adele has the biggest selling; album of the year, digital album of the year, physical album of the year and digital track of the year.
• 21 by Adele, has sold 2.5 million album sales, 1.5 million physical albums and 992,000 digital album sales while “Rolling in the Deep” has been downloaded more than four million times.
• Adele’s 19 is the biggest selling catalog album of the year through the first six months of 2011.
• Lady Gaga’s Born This Way experienced the biggest 1st week album sales of 2011 with 1,108,000 units – the biggest 1st week album sales since 50 Cent’s Massacre in 2005. The album sold a record 662,000 digital albums in the first week of release.
• “E.T.” by Katy Perry tops the chart for best selling digital song for the first six months of 2011 with 4.1 million downloads.

More detail on the report is available at Billboard.biz.

Catalog album sales are up 5.4 percent in 2011, thanks in part to a long-awaited 2010 deal allowing digital distribution of The Beatles’ albums for the first time. Other trends reported by Nielsen include:

• Vinyl sales increased 37 percent in the beginning of 2011 over the same period last year.  Vinyl sales also rose 14.2 percent in 2010, although they only accounted for 1.2 percent of physical sales.
• 2011 saw the most successful Record Store Day in the event’s four-year history. Album sales at independent record stores increased over 39 percent the week of Record Store Day (April 16) from the prior week – an increase of 180,000 units – and 12.7 percent compared to 2010.
• Rock is the most popular genre of music, with 32 percent album share, while pop music represents 40 percent of all current digital tracks sold.
• Ninety-three of the 100 best selling vinyl albums in 2011 fall within the Rock or Alternative genres.

“Strong releases and aggressive promotions by the labels and retailers are among the many contributing factors to the strength we’re seeing in the music industry,” said Dave Bakula, SVP Analytics, Entertainment for The Nielsen Company. “Overall, the data reflects a continuing strong demand by music consumers.”

“This is an interesting and vibrant time for the entertainment industry, music in particular, with the top four albums this week outselling last week’s number one,” said Eric Weinberg, President, Nielsen Entertainment. “We continue to see solid consumer demand for digital music sales, including full-length albums, with more than 40% of this week’s best selling album purchased digitally. Our data also shows independent retail music store sales up 10% for the week, driven by the reissue of the Rolling Stones’ classic “Exile On Main Street” and new albums debuting from the Black Keys, Damian Marley & Nas, Band of Horses and LCD Soundsystem, and the attraction for vinyl remains high.”

Bruce Springsteen’s 2009 halftime performance coincided with the release of his newest album “Working on a Dream.” The show helped the album debut with 224,000 copies sold in its first week. The performance also boosted The Boss’s overall catalog, with all other album sales soaring 218% in the following week.

If digital downloads were any indication, Springsteen’s halftime set list was also a hit. In the week after the Super Bowl, digital sales surged for each of his four performed songs: “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” (+1320%), “Glory Days” (+602), “Born To Run” (+360) and “Working on a Dream” (+221%).

“The Super Bowl halftime show is an incredible driver of music sales time and time again,” says Dave Bakula, SVP of Analytics for Nielsen Entertainment. “Big televised events like the SuperBowl and the Grammy Awards help expose artists to millions of Americans of different ages that they may not normally be exposed to. When a classic rock artist, like Springsteen or Tom Petty, performs in the SuperBowl, it also reminds fans why they fell in love with the artist in the first place and drives those people to purchase.”

Post Game TV Bump
Only a handful of TV shows have ever had the benefit of a Super Bowl lead-in. For network programmers, the post-game timeslot offers a rare opportunity to introduce a program to a wide range of viewers that they may not otherwise reach. Since 1990, the most watched post game broadcast was a special episode of Friends that aired after Dallas beat Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XXX on NBC.

Another measure of success for these shows is the percent of viewers retained from the game. Friends, for example, held 56% of the 94 million Super Bowl XXX viewers. More recently, post-Super Bowl programming has seen mixed results:

Driving the growth was a record-breaking year for digital downloads as music fans picked up 1.16 billion digital tracks  (an 8.3% jump from the prior year) and 76.4 million digital albums  (up 16.1%).

King of pop (and the blogosphere) Michael Jackson along with pop-country star Taylor Swift were among the top-selling artists of the year. Remastered versions of The Beatles catalog secured the fab four a third place spot some 40 years after their heyday, as polar opposites Susan Boyle and Lady Gaga rounded out the top five.

Wax to the Max
While gains in digital sales might signal a shift away from sales of physical music, sales of vinyl albums grew by 33%, with 2.5 million vinyl units sold. Many of the top-selling vinyl artists like The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan are household names, but just as many are lesser-known independent artists and darlings of the indie-rock blogosphere like Animal Collective, Bon Iver and Iron & Wine who round out the top 10 with critical darlings Radiohead and Wilco. Also notable is the fact that two out of every three vinyl albums were purchased at an independent music store.

More Music Sales Facts

• Digital music accounts for 40% of all music purchases in 2009
• Four digital songs broke the 4 million unit sales mark in 2009
• Lady Gaga sold more digital tracks (more than 15 million) in 2009 than any other artist; last year’s top digital seller Rihanna sold just under 10 million tracks

Download Nielsen Soundscan’s complete music report of top albums and artists from 2009, including highlights from a decade of music sales.

For most people, Chris Anderson’s 2006 book The Long Tail marked a new way of thinking about selling goods on the Internet. Being free of the physical limits of shelf space, he predicted, would alter what people bought. For music, this would mean the most popular music titles would become less popular as consumers were able to tap into vast online catalogs. In most corners of the business world, and especially in the music industry, The Long Tail was controversial. Would consumers actually start to ignore the hits?

A Billboard analysis of Nielsen SoundScan data going back to 2004 shows Anderson wasn’t correct on all points. Hit digital albums have lost market share to far less popular titles. But hit digital tracks have gained market share over the years. The top 200 tracks accounted for 14.5% of sales in 2004 and rose to 15.8% in 2005, 17.1% in 2006 and 2007 and 17.2% in 2008. Through October 25, 2009, the top 200 tracks’ share stood at 18.7%.

The top 200 digital albums have shown an opposite trend in market share, steadily dropping to 21.9% in 2008 from 28.7% in 2004. At 22.1%, digital albums’ market share through October, 2009 is slightly better than 2008’s figure.

These two trends imply album and track purchase decisions may be driven by different factors. The most popular tracks may be benefitting from a herd effect due to the viral nature of the Internet. The awareness generated by that small number of songs could drown out less popular songs. Album buyers show they have more diverse tastes and take advantage of the vast catalogs at online retailers. So consumers may prefer to sample the depths of long tail through albums, not by individual songs.

Any discussion of Anderson’s book and theories should include how the record label’s role has changed. A popular sentiment of The Long Tail is that artists have all the tools they need to self-release digital music. That is true. Barriers to entry have been lowered to the point where the costs of recording and commercially releasing music are negligible. As Anderson explained in The Long Tail, cheaper tools of production and distribution have greatly increased the supply of music found online.

But acquiring distribution and getting a sale are two different things. People tend to underestimate the amount of competition faced in digital music. Over 100,000 albums were released in 2008 alone – and about half of those were digital-only releases. Not only does a title have to compete against other new releases, it has to compete against the tens of thousands of well known catalog titles that are available online. It takes resources – both money and expertise – to rise above the competition and achieve sales commensurate to what career-oriented artists need. Such resources are the domain of record labels, who can still find success in the digital world.

While The Long Tail was less explicit about record labels’ role in a changing digital marketplace, in July Anderson told The Times that record labels “are now the least important part” of the music industry. That is true for those with very low sales goals. These days a more established artist, or a mere hobbyist, can circumvent a contract with a record label by using inexpensive digital tools and outsourcing some record label functions. For the more ambitious and the less established, a record label is still by far the best way out of obscurity.

Summary of Billboard’s analysis:

• As more digital albums are released, the more popular titles lose market share to the less popular titles. In other words, demand has shifted from the hits to the niches. The head (what Anderson would call the top 5,000 titles) has lost market share to the tail (all other albums). The head accounted for 77% of digital album sales in 2005. By 2008, the head’s market share had steadily dropped to 65%.
• Sales of digital albums have become less hit-oriented while digital tracks have become slightly more hit-oriented. The top 200 digital albums have accounted for a smaller share of total digital album sales since 2004. In contrast, the top 200 digital tracks’ share of total sales has nudged upward during that time period.
• Sales of individual tracks (those purchased independently, not as part of an album) account for the majority of digital music purchased in the U.S. Individual tracks accounted for 57% of all digital music sold in 2008 (assuming 12 tracks per album).
• In any given week, the top 200 digital tracks account for nearly one in four track purchases. To put that in context, Amazon.com’s MP3 store currently lists 9.99 million tracks. So, the top 200 tracks represent only 0.002% of what a large download store stocks.
• Even titles in the tail (below #5,000) have lost some market share recently. In 2008, the top 8,000 digital albums lost market share to lower-ranked albums. But it wasn’t the best-selling albums that suffered the most. Albums ranked from #200 to #800 suffered the biggest drop in digital album market share from 2004 to 2008 – between 25% and 34%
• While lower ranks have gained market share over the years, any one title has not gained much. For example, an album ranked at #9,000 in 2008 sold about 1,050 digital albums. Less than 100 of those units can be attributed to gains in market share over the previous four years.

An expanded version of this story first appeared at billboard.biz.

Artists such as Lil Wayne, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Coldplay and Flo Rida helped consumers make more decisions to buy music than ever for the fourth year in a row according to Nielsen SoundScan. While total album sales slipped 14% from 500.5 to 428.4M in 2008, sales of digital albums were up 32% from 50M to 65.8M in 2008. Sales of individual digital tracks also grew, soaring 27% over the previous year’s sales. Ironically, in the new digital age, sales of vinyl LPs were at an all-time high (1.88M).

More SoundScan data is available in Billboard’s Year In Music 2008, which features 250 Year-End charts.

Year In Music 2008 Factoids:

• Music purchases in 2008 reached 1.5 Billion, marking the fourth consecutive year music sales have exceeded 1 billion; 1.4 billion (2007) vs. 1.2 billion (2006) vs. 1 billion (2005) .
• Music sales exceeded 65 million in the final week of 2008, representing the biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous record was Christmas week 2007 with 58.4 million music purchases.
• Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” is the best selling Internet album for the year with 144,000 sales.
• During 2008, more vinyl albums were purchased (1.88 million) than any other year in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous record was in 2000, with 1.5 million LP album sales.
• Note that more than 2 out of every 3 vinyl albums were purchased at an independent music store during the year.

Holiday Season Factoids: (last 6 weeks of year).

• Overall album sales during the 2008 holiday season were down 19% as compared to 2007, with sales of just over 80 million.
• Album sales during the holiday season accounted for 19% of all album sales for the year.
• Digital album sales during the holiday season experienced significant growth over 2007 with an increase of 37% to 9.9 million sales.

Digital Factoids:

• Digital track sales break the 1 BILLION sales mark for the first time with more than 1,070,000 digital track sales. The previous record was 844 million digital track purchases during 2007; an increase of 27% over 2007.
• Digital album sales reached an all-time high with more than 65 million sales in 2008; up from 50 million in 2007; an increase of 32% over the previous year.
• 2008 is the first time a digital song broke the 3 million sales mark in a single year. There were 2 songs that achieved this milestone; Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” and Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop;” with sales of 3.4 and 3.2 million respectively.
• In 2008, there are 19 different digital songs with sales that exceeded 2 million compared to 9 in 2007.
• 71 Digital Songs exceeded the 1 million sales mark for the year compared to 41 digital songs in 2007, 22 in 2006, and only 2 digital songs in 2005.
• Rihanna is the biggest selling digital artist in 2008 with nearly 10 million track sales compared to Fergie in 2007 who had 7.5 million track sales.
• There are more than 450,000 different physical albums that sold at least one copy over the Internet during 2008 compared to 390,000 in 2007.
• Note that digital album sales accounted for 15% of total album sales compared to 10% in 2007 and 5.5% in 2006.

Digital Records Broken In Last Reporting Week Of 2008:

• Digital track sales surpassed 47.7 million. The previous sales record was 42.9 million, week of 12/23 -12/30/07.
• Digital album sales this week broke the two million mark for the first time with sales of 2.4 million sales; breaking the previous record of 1.9 million (12/30/07).
• The top 200 digital songs for the week posted an all-time high with 13.6 million sales; breaking the previous record of 11.9 million during the last week of 2007.
• The first time that the Top 5 digital songs (combining all versions of the same song) sold more than 300,000 downloads in a week with Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” selling 419,000. The record for most downloads for a digital song in one week continues to be Flo Rida’s “Low” with sales of 467,000 set during the last week of 2007.

Best Seller Factoids:

• Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III was the biggest selling album of the year with 2.8 million sales.
• Taylor Swift is the biggest selling solo artist, with sales greater than 4.0 million albums and AC/DC is the biggest selling group in 2008 with sales of 3.4 million.
• As Taylor Swift stands at the top of the list, marking the 2^nd time in the last three years that a country artist is the top selling artist for the year.  Rascal Flatts was the biggest selling artist in 2006 with 5 million sales.  Josh Groban took the honors last year (2007) with 4.8 million sales.
• Taylor Swift’s Fearless and self-titled album finished the year at #3 and #6 respectively with sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. This is the first time in the history of Nielsen SoundScan one artist had two different albums in the Top 10 on the year end album chart