October CD Sales Down As Economy Struggles With Recession

Despite the release of AC/DC's Black Ice, CD sales in October 2008 slumped mightily when compared with the sales from October 2007. On a whole, sales were down 19.4% from last year. While last October produced a more noteworthy list of releases — including Bruce Springsteen's Magic, the Eagles' Long Road Out of Eden, Britney Spears' Blackout and Carrie Underwood's Carnival Ride— this October was no slouch either, with Black Ice and the sustained sales of September releases like T.I.'s Paper Trail and Metallica's Death Magnetic. Comparing September 2008 to September 2007 finds another 20.4% decline. The decline is indicative of what's already going on in the music industry, plus the added influence of an overall economic recession. CD sales were only down 12.7% for the year leading up to the last two months, so the fall of the stock market goes hand in hand with the CD market. November looks somewhat more promising, however, with big ticket releases from Guns N' Roses, Kanye West, David Cook, Beyonce, the Killers and Nickelback.

Related Stories:
• Are Retail Exclusives For AC/DC, Eagles, Guns N' Roses Good Business?
• The Future of Digital Album Sales: Inside the Launch of MySpace Music
• Apple Threatens to Shut Down iTunes If Royalty Rate Rises

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter