Top of the pops: A record year for single sales

 

You could argue that it is about time that the industry had some positive retail news. According to recently announced figures published by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and originating from the Official Charts Company, 2009 has been the biggest ever year for singles sales, with 117 million individual tracks sold so far.

 

This exceeds 2008’s sales figures of 115.1 million. An unsurprising 98.6% of the songs this year were sold as digital tracks.

 

The head of the BPI Geoff Taylor said in a press release: “We’ve witnessed an astonishing transformation of the UK singles market during the last six years, with digital downloads rapidly overtaking sales of CD singles and cassettes to dominate the singles scene”.

 

According to data from the official charts company, the fastest selling single of the year so far is Cheryl Cole’s ‘Fight for this love’, which sold 290,000 in the first week of release, overtaking Alexandra Burke’s ‘Bad boys’, which had set the previous record of 185,000..

 

Other major selling tracks this year include ‘Poker Face’ by Lady Gaga and ‘In for the kill’ by La Roux (single artwork pictured above).