In the week ending March 19, overall album sales fell 29% to 1.52 million, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. That number combines sales of all formats of albums: digital albums, CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes and so forth.
1.52 million is the smallest number of albums sold in a week since the firm began tracking music sales in 1991. The previous Nielsen/MRC Data-era low for overall album sales came only earlier this year, when 1.65 million were sold in the week ending Jan. 16.