“Right now, according to the numbers published at Billboard.biz, album sales are down about 10.8% year to date. Through early June, they were down 11.7%. Through a stretch in June and early July, album sales were down 9.8%, and through late July and August they are down 9.3%. Those numbers show continued format substitution and challenges for the album format. The year-over-year improvement in the latter half of the year is a recurring trend over the last few years.”