While some of the more contemporary music genres have registered major drops in sales so far this year, the music industry is reporting major increases for Christian/Gospel, Country, Classical and Latin music.
Country music sales have increased 17.7% so far in 2006 while Christian sales are up 11.6%, Classical is up 7.9% and Latin is up 7.8%.R&B recorded the biggest percentage drop according to Nielsen SoundScan. The genre is down 22.4% on the same period last year. Rap has dropped 15.8% and Alternative is down 14.9%.
In sales, R&B has dropped from 69,312,000 units to 53,806,000. Alternative is down from 59,861,000 to 50,886,000 and Rap has dropped from 35,147,000 to 29,560,000.
