The music industry is changing fast. Quickly, the independent artist is gaining ground in the music industry. This February, an independent artist won a Grammy for "Album of the Year." Actually, it is the second year in a row that an independent artist has won this most prestigious award. Thirty "Best Album" awards in various categories were awarded to independent artists. Of the 109 awards given that day, forty-three went to independent artists. Also, independent artists have roughly a 30% market share of the music industry. I think that is very cool.
On the other hand, someone told me that in 2009 something like 6 million albums were released in the US. Of those, around 3 thousand of them sold more than 5,000 copies. So, even if you only sell 1% of a gold record, your album is in the top 0.5% of album sales that year!