Pic related went triple platinum in a year

Pic related went triple platinum in a year
Drake's Views only went double platinum after nine weeks at number one

Smash Mouth > Drake

I know Smash Mouth was a meme from birth, but I actually really like them so please stop.

Walkin' on the Sun is great. The rest of their music is bad.

SOME

BODY

ONCE

TOLD

Is it bad that I actually like smashmouth?

Christgau gave Smash Mouth's first album an A-

Yes it is you slave morality having piece of shit.

people bought a lot more albums in the late 90s

Why thank you pardner!

yeah this. Smashmouth came out out during the highest peak of music sales in history

Damn, I didn't think digital sales would decline like that

What happened in the 80s?

Decade began with a big recession.

digital sales are going up, just not nearly enough to offset the physical decline

Do they count digital sales for record certifications?

I think that and demographic reasons--the baby boomers all grew up and stopped buying music by 1980. After them came the much smaller Gen Xer population.

But that doesn't explain the massive 90s music boom. for there being half as many Gen Xers as boomers, they were selling 2x more records than in the 70s.

Protip: It's not the population size, it's the format. CDs made the cost of recorded music cheaper than ever before. Vinyl albums were expensive and people couldn't afford to buy as many, especially not in the recession-choked 70s. That music sales were still high in that era had to do with the large boomer population.

The 90s had a better economy, also a string of mega albums like Jagged Little Pill, Californication, and all boyband/girlband albums which sold like a bazillion copies.

music was better in the 90s ;^)

only in the early 90s

80s>90s
punk/hardcore
industrial
post punk/new wave
"alternative" music before it went corporate

the only thing the 90s had going for it is god tier hip hop and electronic music

Got fucking dammit its stuck in my head now.

Drake > Smash Mouth

The early 80s music dropoff could also have been the increased fragmentation of the market into rock, punk, metal, and alternative scenes. Rock was not as monolithic as it had been 10 years earlier. I think U2 were the nearest thing the 80s had to a Led Zeppelin level of big rock group.