Animated Chart: The Rise and Fall of Music Sales, by Format (1973-2021)
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Animated Chart: The Rise and Fall of Music Sales, by Format (1973-2021)

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The Rise and Fall of Music Sales, by Format (1973-2021)

We live in a world of music. Whether when driving to work or jamming out at home, people around the world like to have their favorite tunes playing in the background.

But while our love for music has been constant, the way we consume media has evolved drastically. The past 50 years have seen many different music formats used to access these tunes, mirroring society’s shift from analog to digital.

This video, created by James Eagle using data from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), highlights sales of different music formats in the U.S. over the last 50 years.

Vinyl

Up until the late 1980s, vinyl dominated the music format industry, earning billions of dollars in sales annually. Records of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon were some of the top selling albums available.

Vinyl is said to provide its listeners with analog sounds that reverberate and the warm notes of almost-live music. For vinyl users and enthusiasts to this day, the music produced by these sleek yet massive records is unparalleled.

8-Track

If you’re a millennial (or younger), you may have never heard of the 8-track. But this music format played an integral part in the history of music.

When the booming automotive vehicle industry found it challenging to translate the music experience to cars using vinyl, it looked to the “Stereo 8” eight-track cartridge, better known as the 8-track. This cartridge used an analog magnetic tape and provided 90 minutes of continuous music play time.

8-track carved a niche for itself much before the advent of cassettes and CDs. And through the proliferation of vehicles, 8-track sales climbed to reach a peak revenue of $900 million in 1978.

Cassettes

The era of cassettes pushed 8-tracks into the history of music in the early 1980s. These pocket-sized tapes were more convenient to use than 8Tracks and quickly spread worldwide.

By 1989, the cassette format reached its peak revenues of $3.7 billion.

CDs

First released in 1982, the Compact Disc or CD came into the music market as the successor to the vinyl record.

Developed by Philips and Sony, sales of the sleek and portable CD grew quickly as home and car stereos alike added CD functionality. The format brought in $13.3 billion in revenue in both 1999 and 2000. To date, no other music format has reached the same milestone since.

Digital Music Formats

When it comes to preferred music formats over time, convenience (and cost) seem to have been the biggest catalysts of change.

From the start of the early 2000s, CDs had started to be replaced by other forms of digital storage and distribution. The massive shift to internet consumption and the introduction of digital music, available through downloads, pushed audio CD sales down rapidly.

The launch of streaming platforms like Spotify in 2006 exacerbated this decline, with CD sales dropping by around $4 billion in five years.

Digital sales continued to evolve. Ringtone sales alone brought in $1.1 billion in 2007, and in 2012, the revenues from downloads shot up to a peak of $2.9 billion. But music streaming platforms kept climbing through 2021, and will likely continue to be the future face of music consumption.

RankMusic formatsRevenue in 2021
1Streaming$11.5 billion
2Vinyl$1.0 billion
3CD$0.6 billion
4Downloads$0.5 billion
Other$1.4 billion
Total$15.1 billion

Music streaming and subscription services pushed the accessibility of music to new highs, especially with free ad-supported platforms.

In 2021, streaming secured the music industry a whopping $11.5 billion in sales, good for 76% of the total. If it keeps growing in popularity and accessibility, the format could potentially challenge the peak popularity of CDs in the late 90s.

The Vintage Comeback?

There’s no doubt that digital music formats are getting increasingly popular with every passing year. However, one of our vintage and beloved music formats—the vinyl record—seems to be making a comeback.

According to the RIAA database, the revenue earned by LP/EP sales has shot up to $1.0 billion in 2021, its highest total since the mid-1980s.

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This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

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Ranked: Most Popular Baby Girl Names in the U.S. (1925-2024)

Discover the most popular baby girl names in the U.S. over the past century and how their popularity has shifted by 2024.

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This cropped graphic ranks the most popular American baby girl names in the last century vs. 2024, using Social Security card application data.

Ranked: Most Popular Baby Girl Names of the Century vs. 2024

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

  • Mary is the most popular name (by numbers) in the last century.
  • By 2024 however, it’s fallen out of favor, down 131 ranks.
  • Elizabeth is the only top-10 name that’s retained popularity in 2024.

Deciding on a baby’s name is so polarizing that many new parents will only reveal the name after the child is born.

Of course, some parents like to go for the most unique ones—Elon Musk for example, with “X Æ A-Xii.” Then others go the exact opposite way: honoring grandparents or shared histories.

As a result, tracking naming trends over a period of time can reveal insights into how American society is assigning value to names.

This graphic ranks the most popular baby girl names in the U.S., both in the last 100 years (1925–2024), and for just 2024 to show how popularity has changed.

Ranks and figures are based on Social Security card application data as of March 2025. The sample set is restricted to names where the year of birth, sex, and state of birth are on record, and where the given name is at least two characters long.

The Most Popular Name for American Girls in the Last 100 Years

Mary is the most popular name in the last 100 years, but by 2024 it had dropped 131 ranking spots.

100-Year
Rank
Name# of babies
(1925–2024)
Rank in 2024Rank Difference
(100-Yr vs. 2024)
1Mary2,913,902132-131
2Patricia1,539,442Not in the
top 1,000
N/A
3Jennifer1,470,844547-544
4Linda1,448,119835-831
5Elizabeth1,387,11317-12
6Barbara1,371,191860-854
7Susan1,100,642Not in the
top 1,000
N/A
8Jessica1,048,746574-566
9Karen986,097Not in the
top 1,000
N/A
10Sarah983,34895-85

And Mary is not the only one. Patricia, Jennifer, and Linda—which, with Mary, collectively account for over 7 million births from 1925 to 2024—are all unpopular now.

Patricia (along with Susan and Karen) have exited the top-1,000 altogether. The negative associations with the name “Karen” may explain at least one of those data points.

The only exception to these rather dramatic shifts is Elizabeth, 5th all-time and 17th in 2024.

Parents Name Sons & Daughters With Different Considerations

Interestingly, naming patterns for girls show far more dramatic shifts than for boys (linked in the next section). This suggests that parents don’t feel as bound by tradition for naming their daughters.

Instead they look for uniqueness, which encourages diversifications across the top ranks. Different spellings of the same name (Ashley vs. Ashleigh) for example, will also be counted and ranked separately.

This helps explain why the traditional names that dominated for decades are no longer on 2024’s list.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

What does this same list look like for the other half of the population? Check out, Ranked: The Most Popular Names for American Boys in the Last Century for a similar breakdown.

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