Mariah Carey outsells 50 Cent
Mariah Carey’s great year just got its topper. Along with the flood of awards, chart records and accolades she’s gotten for The Emancipation of Mimi, Carey took the lead over 50 Cent in a close race for the year’s best-selling album. With just a few reporting days left, Mimi slipped ahead of 50’s The Massacre by 32,000 copies. In the latest numbers from Nielsen SoundScan, Carey has sold 4.866 million copies to 50’s 4.834 million.
While Carey and 50 were living large, though, the rest of the music business took a sales dip. Overall sales of CDs and digital album downloads were down about 7 percent, according to a Reuters report.
Album sales from January through the week ending December 25 were 602.2 million, down from 650.8 million during the same period last year. Meanwhile the independent labels are using the internet to great effect, see next post….