The numbers are in on 2007's music sales in the US and Britain, and things still aren't looking good. Digital sales may have seen an impressive spike over 2006, but CD sales continued their downward spiral, and the traditional "album" is being subverted by a new age of "pick and choose" purchasing models.

In both the US and Britain, digital sales saw nearly a 50 percent boost over the 2006 numbers. 844.2 million digital tracks were moved in the US and another 77 million in the UK. While this is good news in the face of physical CD sales that declined by 14 percent from 2006, the more significant issue at stake here is the decline of full album sales. With digital stores allowing customers to purchase just the tracks they want, record labels may have to be content with lowered revenues as people reject the high prices and fluff tracks found in all too many albums.

Further contributing to the decline of full album sales is the beginning of the end of DRM on music. New services like iTunes Plus and Amazon's MP3 Downloads store attract more customers by offering music that plays on every device (good for consumers!), but those buyers seem happy to snap up individual tracks instead of albums (bad for labels!). Still, labels now have the possibility to move move music in total by appealing to those who would never have purchased a whole album but are happy to pick up a hit single for a buck.

Of course, the rise of movies and TV shows on DVD, as well as the the potential for video games to be twice as big as music by 2011, aren't doing any favors for music sales. As consumer entertainment needs diversify, "long tail" models can prosper as "mainstream" business models stagnate. As customers gain more power and choice over what music they buy and how they enjoy it, the labels are simply going to have to adjust for a new pro-consumer age.