DIGITAL downloads will regularly break the one-million- a-week barrier this year as music fans push sales of singles to their highest for six years.
It was also revealed yesterday that the digital revolution currently rejuvenating the music industry – which will result in 50 million-plus singles being downloaded this year – is being bolstered by the grey downloader, or the over-50s buyer, many of whom are replacing their vinyl collections.
For the first time many more obscure singles are available since they were originally issued in the 1960s or 1970s as bands and individual artists as well as record companies broaden online back catalogues.
A total of 16.7 million singles were downloaded or sold in shops in the second quarter of 2006, according to new figures yesterday from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
It represents a lean back towards the single, sales of which dropped with the onset of internet file-sharing and CD-burning in the 1990s.
