No, you can’t have your old industry back. Here are the latest, year-to-date sales figures for 2012, which show a 3.2 percent decline in year-over-year album sales in the US. That follows a relatively flat 2011, widely touted as a recovery but more realistically a result of insane Adele sales and heavily-discounted catalog releases.
The better news is that digital formats continue to grow, both in terms of digital albums and a-la-carte singles. Vinyl growth may be slowing, but is still showing double-digital percentage gains.
Here’s the US-based breakdown for the first half of this year, shared by Nielsen Soundscan.