Opinion: Albums sales reach all time low.

You may have read this on countless other blogs by now,  but basically the story is that in America this weeks album sales have  hit their lowest point in 20 years.  a tiny 3.97 million figure. at number one is the new record from Wiz Khalifa, which has sold a palty 90,000 units.
So where has it all gone wrong?  It seems that we've got a quiet week for new releases, well there is over there anyway. it's easy to argue that substandard music has been dominating our charts for some time now. it feels that credible artists only get signed to major labels as a kind of excuse, for the label to appear credible and pretend that they are not just interested in selling pretty faces to teenagers ans those with littl
e interest in music.  You can hate the likes of One Direction as much as you like but you cannot argue with the sales. The problem is that everything seems to follow these tried and tested templates, and therefore only few new acts get to make it this big.
The fact is we're too used to getting things for free, hip hop is one of the main money spinners in the land of mainstream music. Mixtapes are a common part of the culture, you build up an audience, then supposedly they buy the full product? Why buy Blacc Hollywood when you can simply download Taylor allerdice?
You only have to watch the vmas or some similar garbage to realise that music has become a commodity, Lorde deserved to win, as she's a brilliant.  but in the rock category?
the industry seems determined to kill rock n roll, giving us pale imitations of its real raw power.
the truth is mainstream music isn't all that bad, but we've been pushed to much of music that is more image based. watching any music channel on telly today is like binging on sweets, you think you'll enjoy it but soon get tired of it and with too much of it your teeth will rot.
naturally many will bring up streaming as the main cause of this dip in sales but in my case it only encourages me to buy more music. Now that I can listen to albums I would normally not be interested in buying, and its made me buy a lot more records.
the days when everyone would listen to the same thing are over. I mean why listen to just what's in the charts when you can check out some new afrobeat? some underground hip hop, a band from down the road from you, some krautrock, 60's folk, some Hungarian gypsy folk? kids are less divided now. we can listen to who want when we want. we are all individuals now.