eMusic: Albums Lead Singles

eMusic is the rare music service, possibly the only one, which makes more money from selling album downloads than single downloads. And the trend appears to be accelerating. Albums made up 72% of eMusic's revenue in 2008 and 69% of total sales worldwide since 2006. Data from SoundScan shows the opposite to be true with other download services. iTunes and others are increasingly drawing more revenue from singles sales, despite efforts to promote full album sales.

The big question is why? While eMusic promotes on its home page that users can "chose from over 6 million songs," most sections of the site are more album centric. The charts feature lists of the top albums and EPs, but not of the top songs. Also, although eMusic does offer major label content, in general, the site has a strong indie music skew. The indie fans, presumably, are more interested in the album experience.