BuzzAngle: Physical albums see tiny improvement in 2015, while streaming doubles

After a long wave of declines, physical album sales may have posted an increase in 2015 while streaming continues its steady rise. BuzzAngle Music, one of the newest charts and data companies on the music scene, has released an intriguing snapshot with numbers for the year. Audio song streams totaled 137.5 billion in 2015, an increase of 99.2% over the previous year. Video song streams posted a comparable rise, increasing 97.9% to 168.6 billion streams.

But the other notable facet of this report is its analysis of albums’ performance. Based on BuzzAngle’s data, total consumption of album projects rose 10% from 2014 to 397.4 million. Digital album sales dropped 1.1% to 106.4 million, but the company found physical sales rose 1.1% to 101.9 million. Vinyl sales rocketed up 56.6% to 6 million. Adele’s 25 was the top album of the year – extra impressive for such a late launch – followed by Justin Bieber’s Purpose and Fetty Wap’s self-titled album. Also worth mentioning: even though it came out last year, Taylor Swift’s 1989 is still raking in the dough and ranked as the No. 9 album.