QUICK TAKES - Jan. 6, 2009

Teen country sweetheart Taylor Swift and rapper Lil Wayne finished at the top of a still-shrinking record industry heap during 2008, Swift getting the crown as the year’s top-selling artist and Lil Wayne claiming the biggest-selling album in Nielsen SoundScan’s year-end U.S. music sales report.

Swift, 19, sold slightly more than 4 million albums from Dec. 31, 2007 through Dec. 28 between her new “Fearless” CD and continued popularity of her 2006 debut “Taylor Swift.”

“Tha Carter III” logged sales of almost 2.9 million copies during the same period, followed in the Top 5 by Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends” (2.14 million), Swift’s “Fearless” (2.11 million), Kid Rock’s “Rock N Roll Jesus” (2 million) and AC/DC’s “Black Ice” (1.9 million). Swift is the only act with two of the Top 10 sellers, her debut finishing at No. 6 with sales during the year of nearly 1.6 million copies.

The fact that only four albums sold 2 million or more copies during the year reflected the continuing erosion of album sales, which were down 8.5% compared to last year.

Behind Swift among the year’s biggest album sellers are AC/DC (3.42 million), Lil Wayne (3.38 million), Coldplay (2.7 million) and Metallica (2.5 million).

In the digital realm, 20-year-old pop singer Rihanna was the top-selling act, posting sales of 9.9 million digital tracks during the year. Swift came in at No. 2 with 8.8 million. The top-selling digital track of 2008 was Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love,” with sales of 2.3 million tracks.

Sales of digital tracks topped the 1 billion mark for the first time, up 27% over 2007’s total of 844 million. Digital album sales also were up to 65 million last year, an increase of 32% over the 50 million digital albums sold in 2007.

-- Randy Lewis