Coronavirus Pandemic causes album sales to plummet to lowest figure in 60 years

Over in the United States, album sales have plummeted amid the on-going coronavirus pandemic and figures show they are lowest they have been in over 60 years.

Although you might still think the numbers are pretty high, only an estimated 1.52 million albums were sold during the week starting March 19th, according to entertainment media brand Billboard. They have recognised that both digital and physical copies are taking the hit with streaming numbers also declining slightly. Physical copies have been in decreasing demand regardless due to the closure of high street music retailers and record stores, but this is the steepest drop in their sales in recent times. Meanwhile, digital copies have artificially fallen victim to the fact that companies such as Amazon aren’t restocking their music media and merchandise and are instead focusing on dishing out more of the essential supplies which is understandable during these lockdown periods.

In recent months then it is now not only the live music side of the industry that has taken a huge financial hit from bans and postponements as we now see evidence in a sharp fall in music sales. As a result, we can only wonder what the future holds for the health of the global music industry moving forward. We hope that as soon as the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic calms down a little, that album sales will bounce back to normal as soon as possible and that the music industry can thrive once more.

For the facts and figures of the fall in albums sales you can check them out here.

Image Credit: Eric Krull on Unsplash