Music sales are unsurprisingly suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Music suffered its worst week ever (in the Nielson Soundscan era starting in 1991) the week ending March 19 with 1.523 million sales across all physical and digital platforms. The week ending in March 26 saw a bit of a comeback with 1.558 million sales, potentially marking a bit of growth since everything bottomed out. It should be noted that the week ending March 19 is the week the United States started seeing .
Within that number for the week ending in March 26, digital album sales seem to be doing pretty alright! Digital album sales were up 49.1% the week ending in March 26, resulting in 811,000 sales. According to Billboard, this is the biggest week for digital albums in seven months. Physical album sales declined 23.7% from the previous week with only 747,000 sales. This might be due to social distancing practices being put into place and non-essential businesses, such as physical media manufacturers, being put on hold for now.
Billboard also points out that of 811,000 digital sales, Kenny Rogers holds 17,000 of 'em. Apparently that's who we all really need to get through these troubled times.
Read the full report here.
