The end of the album, as we know it?

The end of the sales year is just five weeks away. But already it looks unlikely that any one album will sell one million copies.

The biggest selling album in 2013 so far is Emeli Sande’s Our Version of Events – an album that was actually released last year, and has only sold just 600,000 copies over the last 11 months. Even Lady Gaga’s new album ARTPOP, sold just 258,000 in its first week, less than a quarter of first-week sales of 2011’s Born This Way.

The industry will be keeping a keen eye on One Direction’s Midnight Memories and Gary Barlow’s Since I saw you last, both released on Monday, which could yet give a boost to pre-Christmas sales.

The one million sales figure is just an arbitrary number – a line in the sand. (Overall album sales have only fallen slightly in the same period). But it resonates because it highlights a growing long-term trend away from physical to digital; and from the multi-track album towards individual songs.

One track wonder?

Both of these trends are interlinked, with the growing use of services like Spotify, Bloom and Vevo appearing to mould our musical demands: sales of compilation albums have grown by 7.7 per cent, according to Official Charts data analysed by Music Week.

“There’s definitely still a place for albums, but there’s a huge consumption of tracks now, on places like YouTube, Vevo, Spotify – people make playlists,” Gregory Mead of Musicmetric told Channel 4 News.

But industry insiders deny that one breakout album failing to reach the one million mark is the sign of decline. Instead they say we need to change how we define success – and embrace the digital sales and streaming market.

Last year saw 3.7 billion songs streamed and the market is expected to grow again this year. Figures from the start of the year also point to over one million paying subscribers for music streaming services.

Some leading musicians have lashed out at the trend towards streaming, mainly because they don’t feel adequately compensated. Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis told Channel 4 News that the money musicians get from Spotify is an “insulting pittance” while Thom Yorke has removed all of his solo work from the service and called Spotify the “last desperate fart of a dying corpse”.

Holistic model

But the future lies in embracing change, said Kim Bayley, director general of the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), and looking at the holistic way that fans now consume music, be it in physical sales, streaming, live gigs or video.

The success of Rough Trade points to changing music habits. Its “culture hub” shops in London have bucked the trend – thanks in part to the added extras, such as gig tickets for loyal customers – and it has just opened its first store in New York, complete with a stage for live music and coffee shop, along with listening posts and specialist staff.

And the resurgence of vinyl over the last few years has lifted the hearts of music fans everywhere: early indicators suggest the number of vinyl sales will have more than doubled by the end of the year, proving that consumers – albeit a specialist group – are still prepared to fork out cash.

“There is a definite trend towards digital models,” said Ms Bayley. “But in terms of the physical sector, it continues to appeal to the fan-base and collectors. All these will exist as we go forward.

“What’s key for music market is to harness potential. Most people are in all those segments – live music, streaming or merchandise. But everyone focuses too narrowly on their silo, not what’s going to grow market overall.”