Final 2007 Nielsen Numbers Are In, With Groban, Eagles, Nickelback, Soulja Boy Leading the Way

The final 2007 Nielsen SoundScan numbers are in, and as predicted, Josh Groban's Noel is the year's best-selling album, moving 3,699,000 copies, while Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's "Crank That" was the year's most successful "digital track" with 2,909,000 downloads and the Eagles were named best-selling group on sales of 3.6 million. The Nielsen year-end report, which tracks nearly everything about 2007's music industry, came with a few headlines that reek of optimism ("Growth in Overall Music Purchases Exceeds 14%" and "Music purchases in 2007 reached 1.4 billion") that kind of deflect from the smaller lines that read "Total album sales declined 15% compared to 2006" and "Digital Music Accounts for 23% of Music Purchases." Some interesting facts about this year's results and all album sales since 1991 can be found below, care/of Nielsen.

• Nickelback were played approximately 1,137,738 times on the radio this year, and Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" was radiowaved 436,984 times
• Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" music video had roughly 23 million streams on the Internet • 220 million ringtones were purchased, resulting in $567 million, with T-Pain's "Buy U A Drank" leading the way, blaring from 2,308,769 cell phones
• Garth Brooks, the Beatles and Mariah Carey are the top-three best-selling artists since SoundScan started keeping track of album sales in 1991
• Shania Twain's Come on Over, Metallica's Metallica and Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill are the top-three best-selling albums since 1991.

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

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