Massive albums due in 2009

People! We thought we'd make you excited for 2009 by telling you about a couple of bands that will be releasing new albums this year. We mentioned in the previous article about Lily Allen, Franz Ferdinand and Antony and The Johnsons. Well there's a bunch more that will be coming out in the following months too.

A new Flight of Conchords record is just one of the announcements to spark the beginning of the end of a long wait for many music fans.

With news of a whole host of other musical endeavors in the works for many acts, 2009 looks set to be the year where there will be something for everyone.

Indie giants, the Strokes are ready to make a triumphant return to the music scene too, this following the success of drummer Fabrizio Moretti’s side project 'Little Joy'. Fellow Strokes member Nickolai Fraiture’s also completed his first album with his band Nickel Eye, set for release in late January.

Autumn is set to include the return of The Prodigy, with their first album to include all band members since the release of 'The Fat of the Land back' in 1997, not to mention an interesting appearance on drums from Foo Fighter Dave Grohl on the track 'Run with the Wolves'.

June will pave the way for new Massive Attack material, the English trip-hop group, who are currently working on their long-awaited fifth studio album. It is said to feature collaborations with Damon Albarn, Sinead O’Connor and Mike Patton of Faith No More fame.

There are also pending releases from Pop punkers Greenday, whose fans have been waiting faithfully for a while for the band's follow up to 'American Idiot' to hit shops.

British stadium fillers Muse are also penciled in for Spring ’09 which, according to NME reports, will be 'the hardest song we've ever written" and will feature a three part symphony.

We don't know when, but the likes of Eminem, Dr Dre., Gang of Four, Junior Boys, Pearl Jam, Placebo, Postal Service and Broken Social Scene have all mentioned that they expect to release a new album sometime in 2009.

Clearly, it's going to be a well and truly mixed bag of exciting and unusual announcements for the coming months. For the moment, 2009 appears to be a busy year for modern music.

Let's get the 2009 party started.......

Welcome back everyone!!!! Happy 2009!!!

Hope all had a merry Christmas and a festive new year! We want to wish everyone a safe, fun and positive 2009. Even more, let's hope the music in 2009 can be even better compared to 2008. There's a few new releases coming out early in 09' (Franz Ferdinand, Lily Allen, Antony and The Johnsons and Andrew Bird) and we can only hope they kick off what potentially could be a sweet sweet year.

A quick note that passed through the office yesterday was that music sales have topped 1.5 billion units for the first time ever in the USA.

Despite the constant perceived drop in the music biz, digital sales have fuelled the most successful year ever for total sales in the US music industry.

1,513 million sales were tallied during 2008 according to Nielsen SoundScan. That was up from 1,369 million last year or a 10.5% increase.

While overall album sales were down 8.5%%, digital album sales were up 32%. More people bought albums digitally than ever before last year. Digital albums accounted for 65.8 million sales.

The real surprise was the increase in vinyl sales. They were up 89% this year, albeit on a small total figure of 1.88 million.

More than 1 billion tracks were sold digitally in 2008. Digital track sales sold 1,070 million last year.

We won't mention who the best selling digital artist or best selling digital song was because they would never get a mention on Music Universe. However, we can tell you that the top selling digital album was 'Viva La Vida’ by Coldplay. Yes.