U.S. Album Sales Volume Falls to New Low

Billboard reports:

U.S. album sales have again fallen to a new weekly low.

In the week ending Jan. 12, 4.25 million albums were sold according to Nielsen SoundScan, which began tracking music sales in 1991.

The previous SoundScan-era low was set in the week ending Oct. 27, 2013, when just 4.49 million albums were sold.

To compare, the SoundScan-era high for album sales in a single week came in late December of 2000, during the height of CD sales, when 45.4 million albums were sold in the week ending Dec. 24. (To put that figure in perspective, in all of 2013, there were 289.41 million albums sold. But in 2000, there were 785.14 million albums sold.)