Music sales have continued to slump in 2008 as the increased number of downloads of digital tracks failed to make up for a plunge in the sale of compact discs. Year-end sales figures released Wednesday by The Nielsen Co. show total album sales, including album equivalents made up of single digital tracks, fell to 428.4 million units, down 8.5 percent from 500.5 million in 2007. Physical album sales fell 20 percent to 362.6 million from 450.5 million, while digital album sales rose 32 percent to a record 65.8 million units. Digital track sales, such as those conducted in Apple Inc.'s iTunes Music Store, were up 27 percent from last year, breaking the 1 billion mark for the first time at 1.07 billion. The report continues a troubling trend for the recording industry, which has a harder time maintaining profits when consumers buy single songs instead of albums. The number of transactions rose 10.5 percent to 1.5 billion, although the figure treats single track and whole album purchases the same. ... "You have to really be right about your hits. If you're going to invest that amount of time in them and not run as many records, you have to be way more right today than wrong," Kallman said. Nielsen SoundScan said album sales fell in every genre. Classical music saw the biggest drop at 26 percent, followed by country at 24 percent and Latin at 21.1 percent. Taylor Swift was the year's best-selling artist with more than 4 million albums sold ... "Taylor Swift is a great artist development story that started as organically as you can in the digital age," said Scott Borchetta, president and CEO of her label, Big Machine Records. "It involved online, non-stop radio tours and strategic TV opportunities which led to non-stop touring. But — most importantly — Taylor connected with her fans like no other artist in 2008."