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Animated Chart: The Rise and Fall of Music Sales, by Format (1973-2021)

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The Rise and Fall of Music Sales, by Format (1973-2021)

We live in a world of music. Whether when driving to work or jamming out at home, people around the world like to have their favorite tunes playing in the background.

But while our love for music has been constant, the way we consume media has evolved drastically. The past 50 years have seen many different music formats used to access these tunes, mirroring society’s shift from analog to digital.

This video, created by James Eagle using data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), highlights sales of different music formats in the U.S. over the last 50 years.

Vinyl

Up until the late 1980s, vinyl dominated the music format industry, earning billions of dollars in sales annually. Records of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon were some of the top selling albums available.

Vinyl is said to provide its listeners with analog sounds that reverberate and the warm notes of almost-live music. For vinyl users and enthusiasts to this day, the music produced by these sleek yet massive records is unparalleled.

8-Track

If you’re a millennial (or younger), you may have never heard of the 8-track. But this music format played an integral part in the history of music.

When the booming automotive vehicle industry found it challenging to translate the music experience to cars using vinyl, it looked to the “Stereo 8” eight-track cartridge, better known as the 8-track. This cartridge used an analog magnetic tape and provided 90 minutes of continuous music play time.

8-track carved a niche for itself much before the advent of cassettes and CDs. And through the proliferation of vehicles, 8-track sales climbed to reach a peak revenue of $900 million in 1978.

Cassettes

The era of cassettes pushed 8-tracks into the history of music in the early 1980s. These pocket-sized tapes were more convenient to use than 8Tracks and quickly spread worldwide.

By 1989, the cassette format reached its peak revenues of $3.7 billion.

CDs

First released in 1982, the Compact Disc or CD came into the music market as the successor to the vinyl record.

Developed by Philips and Sony, sales of the sleek and portable CD grew quickly as home and car stereos alike added CD functionality. The format brought in $13.3 billion in revenue in both 1999 and 2000. To date, no other music format has reached the same milestone since.

Digital Music Formats

When it comes to preferred music formats over time, convenience (and cost) seem to have been the biggest catalysts of change.

From the start of the early 2000s, CDs had started to be replaced by other forms of digital storage and distribution. The massive shift to internet consumption and the introduction of digital music, available through downloads, pushed audio CD sales down rapidly.

The launch of streaming platforms like Spotify in 2006 exacerbated this decline, with CD sales dropping by around $4 billion in five years.

Digital sales continued to evolve. Ringtone sales alone brought in $1.1 billion in 2007, and in 2012, the revenues from downloads shot up to a peak of $2.9 billion. But music streaming platforms kept climbing through 2021, and will likely continue to be the future face of music consumption.

RankMusic formatsRevenue in 2021
1Streaming$11.5 billion
2Vinyl$1.0 billion
3CD$0.6 billion
4Downloads$0.5 billion
Other$1.4 billion
Total$15.1 billion

Music streaming and subscription services pushed the accessibility of music to new highs, especially with free ad-supported platforms.

In 2021, streaming secured the music industry a whopping $11.5 billion in sales, good for 76% of the total. If it keeps growing in popularity and accessibility, the format could potentially challenge the peak popularity of CDs in the late 90s.

The Vintage Comeback?

There’s no doubt that digital music formats are getting increasingly popular with every passing year. However, one of our vintage and beloved music formats—the vinyl record—seems to be making a comeback.

According to the RIAA database, the revenue earned by LP/EP sales has shot up to $1.0 billion in 2021, its highest total since the mid-1980s.

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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Visualized: The Most Followed People on Instagram in 2024

From athletes and musicians to actors and celebrity personalities, here are the top 10 most followed people on Instagram.

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chart of the followed people on Instagram.

Visualized: The Most Followed People on Instagram in 2024

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Scrolling through Instagram reels, stories, and posts has become a significant part of our lives—so much so that the most-followed people on Instagram are able to reach hundreds of millions.

So who are top celebrities influencing millions through this platform? Using data tracked by Social Blade as of March 13, 2024, this graphic shows the top 10 most-followed people on Instagram, not including corporate accounts.

2024’s Most Followed Instagram Personalities

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo became the first person to cross 600 million followers in August 2023, and stands as the most-followed person on Instagram in 2024 with 624 million followers.

For comparison, that’s more than the population of the United States, Mexico, and Canada combined. Here are the entire top 10, rounded to the nearest million followers:

PersonInstagram Followers (March 2024)
Cristiano Ronaldo624M
Lionel Messi501M
Selena Gomez430M
Kylie Jenner400M
Dwayne Johnson398M
Ariana Grande380M
Kim Kardashian364M
Beyoncé320M
Khloé Kardashian311M
Kendall Jenner295M

In second is the only other major athlete to feature in the top 10, Lionel Messi with 501 million followers. Messi and Ronaldo are also the only people with more than 500 million followers on the entire platform.

Making up the rest of the top 10 is a mix of pop stars, actors, and celebrity personalities, including Selena Gomez at 430 million followers, and four members of the Kardashian–Jenner family, with Kylie Jenner having the most followers in the family with 400 million.

Interestingly, while these are the most followed people on Instagram, the number one most followed account belongs to Instagram itself. The account, which has over 7,000 posts, has over 670 million followers to date.

After that, the most followed corporate account is Nike, which has 306 million followers.

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