Album sales continue to slide in '08

Link to January 1 Variety post.

The downlow:

1. Sales of albums, CDs and downloads combined, totaled 428.4 million, down 14% from 2007.

2. As a point of comparison, 618.9 million albums were sold in 2005.

3. Sales of digital tracks increased by 27% to 1.07 billion. Downloads comprised 32% of all music purchases.

4. Sales of vinyl album nearly doubled to 1.88 million. (Call it a "bubbling under the hot 100" phenomenon.)