Single sales have seen a rather sharp decline in the last few months since their Summer 2013 peak. They're still riding high at over three million per week - far higher than the dismal few hundred-thousand they were shifting at their 2004-2005 low, but in 2014 are we going to see a continued slump as people move to Spotify/other streaming services, or is this just a temporary fall based on simply a lack of truly major hits since the Get Lucky/Blurred Lines/Wake Me Up days? Will a spate of huge selling songs in 2014 push things back up again?

 

Albums continue to fall year on year with very few big releases in recent years, Adele's '21' being the major exception. Will sales continue to plummet over the next twelve months or will unexpected major releases see the first signs of an upward trend in a decade? Will digital download albums start selling in huge numbers, or has streaming begun to kill the format off altogether?

 

My opinion on both - I still have yet to find a concrete reason for the sudden single sales slump, no major moment that happened which caused everyone to switch to streaming instead. The mp3 boom of the last decade was a much more gradual affair, a slow slide as the early noughties rumbled on. The closest I've found is Spotify lifting its five-song limit in March this year, and the delayed fall simply being because of the major summer releases propping things up for a few extra months. I think we will see a fall next year but things will level out to a more steadied pace in a few months, as the OCC work out if streaming is the future and - if so - how to integrate it.

 

Albums will never die completely but I can see fewer and fewer pop acts bothering with them as the decade moves on, instead moving more into adult-contemporary acts like Adele and Sandé which will always sell to an older audience. One Direction is the major exception here as they've done hugely well, but I can't see many more acts geared to a young audience putting much attention into albums in the future - certainly ones starting their careers from hereon.

 

What do you all think the next twelve months will see in sales fortunes for the singles and album chart?

You can see that already with pop acts and albums they release 3/4 singles then the album is release as an afterthought - see The Saturdays/Wanted/Dizzee Rascal.

 

I think download albums might rise to 50% in the next few months with this yrs gift card effect ripe for albums to take advantage. As for singles they continue to decline as long as rcord companies continue to hold back releases for ridiculously long times!

Both will decrease I think.

The only way for sales is down from here I think especially with the rise of streaming services.

I am expecting a slight decrease overall, with sales still staying strong. I doubt they'll fall by much. Hell, they may increase for all we know. I mean...who saw Avicii or anybody shifting 200k+ in one week? Or Blurred Lines' 3 week streak of over 180k?