The above chart shows the percent increase/decrease in album sales in each week of 2008 versus the same week in 2007. It's obvious most of the curve is below zero, but the thing I have seen lately is that the trend is upward in the second half of the year.

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. There are some positive takeaways. After much shelf space was lost in 2007, CD sales are still down but are more stable in 2008. An improved release schedule is also a cause for the gains. The year-over-year improvement in the latter half of the year is a recurring trend over the last few years, and it is exactly what I forecast in my State of the Compact Disc report released last month.

In my opinion, a 10% drop is not akin to falling off a cliff, a phrase often used for the drop in recorded music sales. An annual drop in albums sales in the area of 10% is manageable -- it's going to have to be for music companies to transition into an era in which albums will not dominate music as greatly as they have in the past few decades. CD sales are down by greater than 10%, a drop that is cushioned by a roughly 30% increase in digital albums.