While overall album sales (including vinyl, CD, digital, cassette, etc) fell another 17.7% in 2018, the sales picture for vinyl is much more optimistic. Over 2018, vinyl album sales have increased nearly 15% over the year prior, the 13th consecutive year of format growth, with 19.1 percent of all physical album sales (at 16.8 million albums sold out of 88 million total physical albums sold).
The top-selling album of the year was the Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 soundtrack at 84,000 copies. The rest of the top five: Michael Jackson’s Thriller (almost 84,000), Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (77,000), Beatles’ Abbey Road (76,000), and Prince and the Revolution’s Purple Rain soundtrack.
Top selling artists of the year were the Beatles (321,000 copies), Pink Floyd (177,000), David Bowie (150,000), Panic! at the Disco (148,000), and Fleetwood Mac (139,000).
