There’s no big surprise here, but CD sales are down in a big way. According to Digital Music News, CD sales dropped by 11% in the first half of 2010, while digital album sales increased by 14% over the same period in 2009. One bright spot in album sales is Eminem’s rap music collection, Recovery. Recovery’s first week sales topped 740,000 and became the first album to chart that many sales since 2008′s Black Ice by AC/DC.

Recovery, along with Drake’s Thank Me Later and L’il Wayne’s Rebirth albums have all reached gold status in 2010.

The Future of Music Is Digital

The same survey showed that vinyl sales are increasing slightly, but still accounted for less than 10% of new music sales in the first half of the year. Vinyl albums are largely considered to have only niche appeal and will not make up a major portion of new music sales.

What is the appeal of digital music? Distribution of digital music is easy, and the sound quality is better. Digital music doesn’t suffer from the same age-related problems that vinyl- and CD-based music does, and can be replaced easily if the digital music file gets damaged. Digital music also gives the listener the choice of purchasing just the songs they want to hear, without having to pay for tracks they don’t want. Aside from all of that, music lovers prefer digital music because they can take their music with them wherever they go on portable, high-capacity MP3 players.

With an MP3 player, you can create playlists of the songs you want to hear from the artists you love, and you can change up your list any time you want to. Portability, flexibility and customization are the reasons more music buyers are switching to digital music.

This switch in consumer preferences opens the door for other possibilities, like self-publication of music. Music producers of any experience level can self-produce their own music, especially if they have access to a professional music production software package like Sonic Producer. Sonic Producer comes complete with hundreds of royalty-free samples, and can easily export music to MP3 format. Self-produced music and beats can be uploaded to music-sharing sites, or can even be sold as mixtapes, singles or albums. With Sonic Producer, you can make your own music and share it with the world! It’s a great way to break into today’s rap music business.

Photo Credit: LondonBrad, via Flickr