It's happened. For the very first time ever, the top title on Billboard's Hot Digital Tracks chart has outsold the No. 1 commercial single on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Sales tally. In other words, the #1 downloaded single has outsold the #1 offline single. The most excellent funky sounds of Outkast accomplished the feat with Andre 3000's "Hey Ya!". "Hey Ya!" leads the digital list with 8,000 downloads in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, while MercyMe's "I Can Only Imagine" sold 7,000 copies to top Billboard's Hot 100 Singles Sales chart.
My vision of the future of music distribution is now being realized. This process is only in its infancy, but once mature will become the primary option for music lovers. Of course, if the record industry hadn't taken such an ludacris amount of time before trekking in this direction, we'd be there by now. Did they think this Internet thing was merely a fad?
