RUSH was at number 1 on amazon the other day due to the 99 cent sale thing - with their album that just came out this summer - “Clockwork Angels”. Great music - available on vinyl as well.
I think a lot of the sales figures are due to folks just buying 1 or 2 digital songs. Heck, lots of groups are just putting out 1 or 2 songs. (Rush did that two years ago, and the two songs were precursors to the new album).
I think it is pretty hard for the artists to make any money just selling music nowadays.
To some extent, we’ve gone “back to the future” with downloads being the new 45s, and albums becoming irrelevant. It took Sgt Pepper’s to make the album king.
The music business killed the music business. remember all the bands and music coming out daily in the 60’s and 70’s until the record companies pick and chose who would live or die