Downloads Make Singles a Hit Again

[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: J. Freedom du Lac]
Commercially released singles, which were on the music industry's endangered-species list at the turn of the 21st century, have come roaring back to life in the digital age. In some ways, it's like the singles-driven 1950s and '60s all over again -- only with MP3s replacing 45s. As iPods and other MP3 players outsell CD players, sales of downloaded singles are booming accordingly: Though sales of full-length albums were down 7.2 percent last year, the digital singles market grew by 150 percent, with 352.7 million individual songs sold online. It was by far the highest figure for singles sales in any format since 1973, the first year for which Recording Industry Association of America shipment data are available for singles. In late December 2005, weekly singles sales topped CD sales for the first time, as American consumers -- many of them flush with holiday gift cards and loading new MP3 players -- purchased 19.9 million digital tracks but just 16.8 million albums.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR200602...
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