No surprise, album sales in 2008 down: (But digital sales and sales of vinyl albums are up)

• Total album sales fell to 428.4 million units, a drop of 8.5%  (2007 = 500.5 million).

• Physical album sales fell 20% to 362.6 million (from 450.5 million)

• Digital album sales rose 32% percent to 65.8 million units;

• Digital track sales were up 27%, breaking the 1 billion mark for the first time at 1.07 billion.

• Total transactions rose 10.5% to 1.5 billion;

• All Genres saw losses: Classical music dropped 26%; Country fell 24%; Latin was off 21.1%;

• Vinyl album sales also grew with 1.88 million vinyl albums purchased for the year.

But concert revenue was up:

• Box-office receipts from North American concerts were $4.2 billion, up 7.8%;

• Average ticket prices cost $66.90, up 8%;

• Number of tickets sold fell 3%, to 35.6 million