Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora. All of these music streaming services have changed he music industry and significantly helped the rise in it’s health, according to Pitchfork.  RIAA excitedly announced that recorded music’s retail revenue has gone up 7.7 billion in the past year, which is the most it has been since 2009 and the increase of 11.4% is the most since 1998.

Streaming music services had a lot to do with it and doubled in sales to 2.5 billion. However, president Corey Sherman says the growth is exciting but fragile. CD sales declined to only 99.4 million, which is the least amount since 1986. Downloads also dropped 22% to only 1.8 billion.

On the plus side, vinyl sales went up to 430 million which accounted for the most revenue for the music industry when it comes to physical copies sold.

Again music streaming was the biggest player this year with more music being streamed per day than the total number of downloads for the whole of 2016. The most streamed artist of the year was Drake by a long shot.

The music industry will forever be growing and changing but we must not forget to support artists and the beautiful music they create.