Lately various countries added track sales and streaming to their national album chart. And from this week on, the biggest music market of the world, the USA, makes the same. The official Billboard Top 200 Album Chart combined now album sales (conversion factor 1:1), digital track sales (10:1) and streaming (1500:1). And it seems that other countries follow this example in the next time. Let us look back in the past: with the breakthrough of the Compact Disc at the end of the Eighties and the earlier Nineties, the global album sales grew strongly with a peak in the second half of the Nineties. But now, for over 10 years the global album sales shrink dramatically. What happened?? The main reason for this decline was the new market of the Digital Tracks! Today many people don't buy a complete album as before, but they looking for the best tunes of an album and purchase only these songs. Since one, two years there's another 'problem'... Streaming! More and more people having a subscription of Spotify or other streaming-providers and buying no longer music in digital or physical formats. That's why the downward momentum of the global album sales accelerated this year and for the first time ever also the digital track sales are on the way down. Several times in the last months i thought about it, to give it up the Global Album Chart, because the worldwide sales fall further and further (certainly also in the coming years). I will summarize again: the Digital Track Sales and Streaming are the reasons for the decay of the global album sales, and that's why we follow the example of the US-Billboard Chart and other... from the week 2, 2015 on, we'll integrate Track Sales and Streaming to the Global Album Chart. It was a very difficult decision, but believe it or not, a pure sales-based album chart has no future! The additional sales from Digital Tracks and Streaming bringing a fair compensation and incidentally more stability!... and now to the current hitlist: with the first full week of the holiday season the most albums in the Top 40 showing sales increases, also Taylor Swift's million seller '1989', which returns to the summit of the Global Album Chart for a third week, driven by a 21% sales boost to 380.000. After five weeks on the tally the album moved a total of 3.394.000 copies. One Direction's 'Four' started easily at no.1 last week with 881.000 copies, now it slides at no.2 after second-week sales of 312.000. It seems that this year's most successful holiday album will be 'That's Christmas For Me' by the American A-Cappella group Pentatonix. The set makes another big jump from no.7 to no.3 after a massive 118% sales explosion to 235.000 copies. Michael Bublé's 'Christmas' classic slips two places at no.14, but wins also considerable 62% in sales to 89.000 copies. Highest debut this week is the first best-of compilation from Eminem's Shady label. 'ShadyXV' bows at no.4 with 206.000 units. David Guetta arrives at no.7 with his new effort 'Listen' and 152.000 sales, shy behind at no.10 starts the South Korean boy band BigBang with their compilation 'Best Of 2006-2014' and 120.000 sales. Some additional sales stats: '.5: The Gray Chapter' by Slipknot sold 26.000 copies last week and reaches a total of 504.000 so far, 'Nostalgia' by Annie Lennox sold 21.000 units last week, 184.000 so far, 'Popular Problems' by Leonard Cohen sold 16.000 units last week and has a total of 427.000 units so far, Beyoncé's self-titled album sold 3.564.000 copies so far, 'Ghost Stories' by Coldplay 2.893.000, and 'X' by Ed Sheeran 2.647.000.
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