Music 2006 - Digital Track Sales Rose 65%; Album Sales Fell 4.9%: Nielsen SoundScan

Other Highlights from Nielsen SoundScan data:
- Total U.S. album sales (including CDs and digital albums), fell 4.9% in 2006, to 588.2 million units.
- The year's best-selling album: Walt Disney Co TV movie, "High School Musical," with sales exceeding 3.7 million units. Albums by Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Nickelback and Justin Timberlake made to the top five.
- Disney-inspired soundtrack aimed at 'tweens -- "Hannah Montana" -- was the No. 8-selling album and sold nearly 2 million copies.
- Country group Rascal Flatts was the biggest selling artist in 2006, with nearly 5 million albums sold and nearly 4 million digital track sales.
- For the first time, a digital song, "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter, broke the 2 million sales market in a year, while 22 digital songs exceeded the 1 million sales for year, compared to only 2 digital songs in 2005.
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Overall country album sales dipped by less than 1% while classical music witnessed the largest percentage sales boost of 22.5% surge in 2006.
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