A billion songs isn’t that impressive
February 24, 2006So Apple is making a big deal out of the fact that they sold their one billionth song on iTunes this week. A billion of anything sounds like a lot, but when you look at it in perspective it’s not really that big a number. At least not when it comes to music.
For example, Kenny Chesney’s label just announced he sold 25 million albums. If you assume ten songs on the average album, that means just one artist sold a quarter of a billion songs.
Or take Michael Jackson (please 
) His Thriller album sold 26 million copies all by itself. Now it only had 9 tracks but still that’s almost a quarter of a billion tunes just off the one album.
I’m not saying a billion songs sold on iTunes isn’t impressive. But it has to be taken in context–digital downloaded music still has a ways to go before it catches up with regular music sales.
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