Okay, maybe the holiday retail season wasn’t that bad. But while even those who’ve wandered here this morning looking for pictures of t.A.T.u.’s baby won’t be surprised that music retail experienced a drop in sales from this time last year, the steepness of said drop between 2006 and 2007 is kinda sorta pretty depressing even for us jaded industry rubberneckers “observers.”

While [Josh] Groban’s “Noel” has crossed 3.5 million in sales to become the top-selling disc of the year, overall music sales during the Christmas shopping season were down an astounding 21% from last year. From the week of Thanksgiving up through the day before Christmas Eve, 83.9 million albums were sold, a decrease of 21.38 million from 2006’s 105.28 million.

The week leading up to Christmas saw sales rise a whopping 42% over the previous week. But when the week’s sales of 25.57 million are compared to the same week from ‘06, they represent an 18% drop.

Ouch. But! It won’t be until next week that many of those wee plastic cards–you know, the ones that can be redeemed for digital files that many people have decided to buy as gifts instead of CDs–will be factored into things. So maybe the Internet will save the day. After all, I spent all of Christmas morning trying to buy a copy of Altars Of Madness off of iTunes, and it said there were too many people trying to download stuff! I was actually forced to go to a record store. (The store didn’t have it either. This industry is screwed.)

“Noel” is Music’s Saving Grace [Variety]

^* Your guess is as good as mine, re. the picture.