The rise follows last year’s increases, when digital singles outsold plastic CDs for the first time.

All in all, consumers have made 26 million more music purchase decisions this year than last year. That breaks down to 288 million individual digital tracks (compared with 242 million at this time last year) and 99 million albums (compared with 119 million at this time last year).

Digital song sales have risen 54%, while album sales — both in physical and digital form — have dropped more than 16%.

Excluding smaller formats, such as the 54 million ringtones sold so far this year, single songs now make up approximately two-thirds of the music sales volume in the US.

"I think the album is going to die," said Aram Sinnreich of Radar Research in a New York Times interview.

As a result of the shift in buying patterns, far from getting multimillion-dollar recording contracts, many new artists are being offered much smaller contracts for singles — or sometimes ringtones — only. 

Via eMarketer