Nielsen & Billboard's 2013 U.S. Music Report

Nielsen Entertainment and Billboard have announced the 2013 year-end report for the 12-month period of December 31, 2012 through December 29, 2013. Nielsen SoundScan measures U.S. point-of-sale of recorded music product. Nielsen BDS tracks U.S. radio airplay and music streams. Both systems power many of the Billboard charts.

For 2013, more albums exceeded a million unit sales than in 2012 (13 in 2013 vs. 10 in 2012). Album sales including Track Equivalent Albums (Albums + TEA) also had more million-sellers in 2013 over 2012 (24 in 2013 vs. 22 in 2012).

David Bakula

"Despite shifts in how music is consumed, we see continued growth in overall music consumption says David Bakula, SVP Industry Insights, Nielsen Entertainment.

"With more than 118 billion streams in 2013 reported by our data providers, which is the approximate revenue equivalent of 59 million albums purchased, the industry remains vibrant as consumption continues to change and expand. 2013 was also great year for creative album release events."

2013 YEAR-END HIGHLIGHTS

• Streaming continues to be a very bright spot for the music industry, with more than 32% growth over last year, including a remarkable +103% increase in On-Demand Audio streaming.
• Justin Timberlake had the biggest album-debut week this year, when the 20/20 Experience opened with 968,000 units in its first week. 20/20 Experience is the best-selling album of the year and, coupled with the subsequent fall release of the 20/20 Experience Complete, the two titles combined to sell over 3.2 Million units in 2013.
• Adele's 21 album becomes the first album ever to surpass 3 Million in Digital sales, and the top-selling digital album of all time.  Mumford and Sons Sigh No More and Babel are the 2nd and 3rd biggest-selling digital albums respectively. Combined sales for these two albums are 3,010,000, exceeding 21 by only 1,000 units.
• Robin Thicke/Blurred Lines and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis/Thrift Shop eclipsed 6 Million digital song sales each in 2013, the second consecutive year that the top two songs each sold over six million units. In 2012, Gotye featuring Kimbra/Somebody That I Used to Know and Carly Rae Jepsen/Call Me Maybe each surpassed six million song sales, marking the first time that any digital song had sold more than six million units in a calendar year.

• Beyoncé had the second-biggest digital album debut of all time when her surprise release Beyoncé was released in December and sold 617,000 digital albums in its first week. After only three weeks of release, Beyoncé is already the 9th best-selling digital album of all time. Lady Gaga/Born This Way moved 662,000 album units in its debut week.
• Justin Timberlake became the first-artist-not-named-Adele to sell more than 1 Million Digital albums in a calendar year as his 20/20 Experience sold 1,026,000 units.  Combined with the 20/20 Experience Complete, the two albums sold 1,345,000 Digital Albums.

• Eminem burst back onto the scene with his Marshall Mathers LP2, which had the second biggest album debut week of the year with 792,000 units. The album totaled over 1.7 Million units for the year and was just one of four Eminem albums to make the Top 200 best-selling albums for the year. Recovery sold 169,000 albums in 2013, landing at #164 for the year; Eminem Show sold 165,000 (#175), and Curtain Call sold 154,000 (#189).
• One Direction and Blake Shelton each had three albums in the 2013 Top 200 best-selling albums chart.  One Direction's Midnight Memories sold 1,096,000 (#12) in 2013; Take Me Home sold 555,000 (#36); and Up All Night sold 312,000 (#87). Blake Shelton's Based On A True Story sold 1,109,000 albums in 2013; Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton sold 182,000 (#144); and Red River Blue sold 165,000.
• Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' The Heist not only sold more than 1 Million copies, but the songs from the album also sold nearly 16 Million units combined, or 1.6 Million Track Equivalent Albums (TEA), placing the project as the #3 album with TEA seller for the year.

• Country music continues to be a strong seller across all formats, with Country's share of total album sales reaching 13.8% this year (down slightly from last year's record high of 14.1%). Country's share of digital song sales has reached 12.6% of all songs sold and 9.6% of all digital albums sold, each of which are high water marks for the genre. Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise" is the best-selling Country Digital Song of all time, with sales of 6.33 million. Lady Antebellum/Need You Now (6.27million); Taylor Swift/Love Story (5.66 million); Band Perry/If I Died Young (4.74 million); and Taylor Swift/You Belong (4.41 million) round out the rest of the Top 5.