In what is either depressing or exciting news, depending on who you are, last year, for the first time ever, streaming music produced more revenue for the recording industry than physical CD sales. As the AV Club points out, streaming brought the record industry revenue of $1.87 billion in 2014, while CD sales earned it only $1.85 billion. This follows a trend of decline in sales of CDs which has lasted almost a decade.

Overall, digital sales account for about 37 percent of music revenue. Physical sales of all types account for 32 percent of the market, and streaming accounts for about 27 percent. Just so you know, Pandora pays an artist about $90 per 1 million plays while Spotify pays between $.006 and $.0084 per play. In good news, cassette sales were way up in 2014 as compared to 2004. Experts have been silent as to whether this trend will continue.