Tracks Push Country Album Sales Positive

This year is the first time we have a complete 12-month country digital track sales report from Nielsen SoundScan, and we are excited!

The 2010 Top 200 country tracks shows a total of 57.68 million purchased. For added track perspective, we divide the total Top 200 sales by 10 to get a metric called “track equivalent album” or TEA. Obviously a TEA is not identical to regular album purchase. Based upon this year’s track sales, we added an additional 5.77 million TEA album purchases to country’s 43.7 million albums reported by Nielsen SoundScan boosting album sales to a 7.2% increase over 2009. (Comparing albums to albums, country sales fell about 5.2%.) But unfortunately, digital tracks and albums are not equal in terms of margin and profitability.

Just like in touring and album sales, country artists do not participate equally in the upper reaches of the tracks chart. The industry tells a tale of haves and have-nots. For example, the Top 20 selling digital tracks totaled 35% of the entire 200 songs listed. Further narrowing the curve, only thirteen artists were involved in selling the Top 20 tracks. [see list]

Top Selling Country Digital Tracks Songs 2010
(Source: Nielsen SoundScan)
1. LADY ANTEBELLUM /NEED YOU NOW
2. SWIFT*TAYLOR/MINE
3. SUGARLAND/STUCK LIKE GLUE
4. BAND PERRY*THE /IF I DIE YOUNG
5. SWIFT*TAYLOR/ TODAY WAS A FAIRYTALE
6. JARON AND TLRTL/PRAY FOR YOU
7. LAMBERT*MIRANDA/THE HOUSE THAT BUILT ME
8. UNDERWOOD*CARRIE /UNDO IT
9. LADY ANTEBELLUM/AMERICAN HONEY
10. SWIFT*TAYLOR/ YOU BELONG WITH ME
11. NIEMANN*JERROD/LOVER, LOVER
12. SWIFT*TAYLOR/BACK TO DECEMBER
13. BROWN*ZAC BAND/FREE
14. BROWN*ZAC BAND/CHICKEN FRIED
15. BRYAN*LUKE RAIN IS A GOOD THING
16. BROWN*ZAC BAND/TOES
17. UNDERWOOD*CARRIE /COWBOY CASANOVA
18. ATKINS*RODNEY /FARMER’S DAUGHTER
19. BRICE*LEE/ LOVE LIKE CRAZY
20. ALDEAN*JASON /MY KINDA PARTY

Top Selling Track Artists (% of Top 200 total tracks)
(Source: Nielsen SoundScan)
1. SWIFT*TAYLOR/14.85%
2. LADY ANTEBELLUM/9.08%
3. UNDERWOOD*CARRIE/5.72%
4. BROWN*ZAC BAND/4.93%
5. ALDEAN*JASON/4.11%
6. LAMBERT*MIRANDA/3.49%
7. SUGARLAND /3.33%
8. BAND PERRY*THE /2.65%