ALBUM SALES PLUMMET, DIGITAL SALES UP

It wasn’t exactly the best of years. In fact, 2007 might’ve been one of the worst in the modern history of the record business. At least according to the good folks at Nielsen Soundscan.

Overall album sales were down to 500 million from 588 million the year before, a 15% deficit, though adding in track equivalent albums, the deficit is shaved to 9.5%, to 585 million from 646 million.

On the brighter side, overall music sales—counting albums, singles, music video and digital tracks—were up 14% from 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion… that’s beeeelion, as Dr. Evil might put it. Now, let’s try monetizing those transactions.

Digital album sales were up 53% (from 32.6 million to 50 million), while online track sales were up a whopping 45% from 582 million to 844 million.

Rap was the year’s biggest loser, dropping 30% in sales, followed by Alternative (-19.2%), R&B (-18.3%), Country (-16.3%), Latin (-15.6%) and Christian/ Gospel (-14.3%).

Soulja Boy Tell’em’s smash “Crank That” was the year’s top-selling digital song, with 2.9 million, followed by Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah” at 2.56m and Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry” at 2.5m.

T-Pain’s “Buy U a Drank” was the year’s top mastertone, with 2.3 million, followed by Mims’ “This is Why I’m Hot,” with 2.1 million. In all, there were 220 million ringtone purchases in 2007, representing sales of $567 million. Mastertone purchases accounted for more than 90% of all ringtone sales during the year.

Music sales exceeded 58.4 million for the final week of 2007, the biggest sales week ever, topping last Christmas season, with 47.4 million music purchases. A full 20% of all albums sales occurred during the six-week holiday season.