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UK retailers have commented on the decline in album and single sales in 2013, blaming a lacklustre catalogue of albums on offer to the consumer.
2013 was a bad year for album sales with a decline seen across the board with a 6.4 per cent drop in album sales and a 3.4 per cent slump in single sales. This was all despite offerings from some of the biggest bands in the industry including Beyonce, Arctic Monkeys, Katy Perry and David Bowie.
Now, in their round up of the year in Music Week, ERA who represent HMV, Spotify, Deezer, O2 Tracks, Rough Trade, Tesco, Amazon and Bloom.fm, have chosen to blame the strength of what was on offer.
"Music’s performance is primarily due to a weak release schedule," writes general manager Kym Bayley. "Which is particularly disappointing given the huge investment by digital services in music’s future. Retailers will be hoping that labels deliver bigger hits in 2014."
Below listen to 'Do I Wanna Know' by the Arctic Monkeys one of the singles of the year
Meanwhile, money made from subscribing to streaming services such as Spotify and Deezer now accounts for an impressive 10% of the UK music market - that's £103million a year. The BPI states that in a year when Arctic Monkeys were most streamed artist, premium subscriptions to audio streaming surpassed £100 million mark for the first time in 2013 - up from £77 million in 2012.
It is estimated that UK fans streamed 7.4 billion songs in 2013, double the level of 2012.
