Country music sales decline 16 percent in 2007

Monday, January 7, 2008 – Country album sales dropped more than 16 percent in 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures. The Eagles had the biggest selling disc with "Long Road Out of Eden" selling 2.6 million units, while Taylor Swift's self-titled debut sold 1.9 million copies. The Eagles and Swift had the third and ninth biggest selling country discs of 2007. Country mirrors the rest of the record industry with sales in all genres down 15 percent in 2007 compared to 2006. A total of almost 501 million units were sold. Overall, in country music, sales dropped from about 75 million units in 2006 to 63 million last year. Among the top 10 best selling artists last year in any genre were The Eagles in third with more than 3.5 million units, Underwood in fourth (a bit more than 3.2 million units), Rascal Flatts in fifth with about 3.13 million units and Tim McGraw in 10th with about 2.4 million units sold. Underwood's "Before He Cheats" was the sixth most played song in the U.S. last year with 346, 169 spins, according to Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. The song was the only country tune to make the top 10, which Fergie led with "Big Girls Don't Cray" and about 381,000 plays. The song also was the second most streamed song on the intent with about 10.5 million streams. She was the only country act on the list.