Photo by Jamie James Medina

Answer: The current one.

I was made aware of this fun fact a few weeks ago by Silicon Valley veteran Ellen Levy, whom I met at the BIF summit. It makes sense if you think about ringtone sales, which jumped by 86% in 2006.

According to Chris Anderson, every single part of the music industry is actually doing much better, except for the selling little plastic discs part (which accounts 25% of the entire music business).

Concerts and merchandise are up 4%, digital track sales increased by 46% and licensing music to commercials, TV shows, movies and videogames is also up. Vinyl singles more than doubled in the UK (I blame the funky house scene) and iPod sales went up 31% this year.

CD sales meanwhile, fell 18%. I’m sure VHS tapes, 8-tracks and horse-drawn carriages didn’t have a great year either.