noteworthy wrote:
Bear in mind that you're looking (above) at the charts for "best-selling albums." The reality is that people aren't buying albums anymore, they're buying individual tracks.

Interesting. I think this is at the heart of it. As ambient music Ghosts makes sense to listen to as an album. The individual songs aren't even really distinct in the sense that you'd want just one particular track. But most pop "albums" are just collections of distinct tracks... Real albums that have a cohesive artistic theme are rare. So naturally in this environment the "best-selling albums" will be the rare few that have a cohesive theme. The total sales for "best-selling album" may be far lower than than for "best-selling track." Perhaps the time approaches when "best-selling album" won't be a very interesting thing from a business standpoint, upheld mostly for historical reasons, although perhaps it will be a place to find decent art.

RE: re NIN best selling cc-licensed music (Lessig Blog)