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Albums suffered another precipitous drop in 2009, according to the latest US-based data from Nielsen Soundscan. The group reported yearly sales of 373.9 million units, down 12.7 percent from a 2008 total of 428.4 million. The tally includes CDs, digital albums, LPs, and the increasingly-marginalized cassettes.

That represents another tough drop, though the label-partial Nielsen softened the blow by factoring in its usual bag of questionable calculations. That includes ‘track equivalent albums,’ as well as a separate methodology that counts every discrete transaction – download, ringtone, album sale, whatever – and invariably comes up with a gain. [Read More]