Business

THE SONG DOESN’T REMAIN THE SAME

Just like 2006, the best-selling album of 2007 likely won’t come from a major record label act – and, even more depressing for the music industry, for the third year in a row the final sales total will likely be down more than a million units.

The soundtrack to Disney’s “High School Musical 2” this week moved past SonyBMG’s “Daughtry” to become the year’s top-seller with 2.3 million copies sold, SoundScan reported.

Though industry sources expect the album to increase its lead over the competition during the holiday season, “HSM2” will have a hard time reaching the 3 million copy plateau, let alone equaling the 3.7 million sales total of the original last year – which ranked as the lowest-achieving chart topper since 1991.

Indeed, while the original “HSM” soundtrack held the dubious distinction of being the first best-selling album of the year to fall short of the 4-million copy mark, its sequel could very well be the first year-end chart topper not to reach 3 million copies sold.

The year’s top-selling album shed 3 million units from 2004 to 2005 – from 2005 to 2006 it lost 1.2 million units, and unless “HSM2” can sell more than 100,000 copies a week for the next month, its final tally will also be down a million units from its predecessor.

“What was considered a big hit last year in terms of units sold is unattainable this year,” said Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield. “The top 10 or top 50 albums keep ticking down each year.”

While piracy, a la carte single sales, the closing of retail stores and a host of other issues have eaten away at the music industry’s core physical product, what’s even more distressing to the industry about “HSM2’s” chart-topping status is that digital album sales are included in its tally. peter.lauria@nypost.com