You guys are demanding all killer no filler … and the music industry hasn’t quite risen to the occasion.

Music sales have continued to slump in 2008 as the increased number of downloads of digital tracks failed to make up for a plunge in the sale of compact discs.

Year-end sales figures released Wednesday by The Nielsen Co. show total album sales, including album equivalents made up of single digital tracks, fell to 428.4 million units, down 8.5 percent from 500.5 million in 2007.

Physical album sales fell 20 percent to 362.6 million from 450.5 million, while digital album sales rose 32 percent to a record 65.8 million units.

Digital track sales, such as those conducted in Apple Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, were up 27 percent from last year, breaking the 1 billion mark for the first time at 1.07 billion.

The report continues a troubling trend for the recording industry, which has a harder time maintaining profits when consumers buy single songs instead of albums. The number of transactions rose 10.5 percent to 1.5 billion, although the figure treats single track and whole album purchases the same. …

“You have to really be right about your hits. If you’re going to invest that amount of time in them and not run as many records, you have to be way more right today than wrong,” Kallman said.

Nielsen SoundScan said album sales fell in every genre. Classical music saw the biggest drop at 26 percent, followed by country at 24 percent and Latin at 21.1 percent.

Taylor Swift was the year’s best-selling artist with more than 4 million albums sold …

“Taylor Swift is a great artist development story that started as organically as you can in the digital age,” said Scott Borchetta, president and CEO of her label, Big Machine Records. “It involved online, non-stop radio tours and strategic TV opportunities which led to non-stop touring. But — most importantly — Taylor connected with her fans like no other artist in 2008.”

I love how you just can’t read about music right now without hearing about how freakin’ awesome Taylor Swift is.

It’ll be interesting to see how the talent development scene changes over the next couple of years based on the kind of success Taylor’s seen this year.

Taylor Swift is UNBEATABLE.

The 16-year-old phenom is #1 on the Billboard charts AGAIN.

Unfuckingbelievable, Taylor.

Keyshia Cole came in at #2 and Jamie Foxx’s Intuition is at #3. Britney fell to #4, Beyonce to #5, and Fall Out Boy’s Folie a Deux debuted at a disappointing #8. If only Ashlee had popped out twins!

Seriously, though, how hard does Taylor Swift rock???

The next time this hottie superstar sees a Jonas Brother it’ll be on a Where Are They Now? VH1 special. BOO-YAH!

Thanks Brian!

While Britney had the #1 album on the charts last week, sales of Circus took a deep dive this week, dropping around 60% to 200,000. That put Britney in the #2 spot this week, and Taylor Swift’s Fearless reclaimed the #1 position. This is the FIFTH week on the charts for Fearless. Wow!!! Very, very impressive, Miz Swift.

The #3 spot goes to Beyonce with I Am … Sasha Fierce, while Kanye’s 808s and Heartbreak droped to sixth place.

In a new interview with CMT airing Thanksgiving Day, Taylor Swift admits that she does keep up with the gossip blogs.

“I go on blogs all the time,” she says. “I like to go on Just Jared and Perez Hilton and see what’s going on with celebrities. I like to have things to talk about. I’m in the makeup chair a lot talking to people and I’m like, ‘So, did you hear that so-and-so was dating so-and-so and that they were seen last night and that they ordered salads?’”

And as for the times that she’s the focus of the blogs?

“I don’t have issues with showing up on those blogs, as long as it’s not too mean,” she says. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, I ate a salad last night. That’s okay if you know that.’”

Oh, Taylor! You need to read EVIL BEET! I WORSHIP you over here!!! You should give us salad exclusives!!! We already do daily Lohan and Paris posts and I would be SO DELIGHTED to run a Daily Taylor Swift Salad segment. Just email me every day and tell me what kind of salad you ate that day — or if you didn’t eat a salad at all — and I will write about it!

Your new album is MY FAVE!!! Get in touch!!!!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo!!!!

My beloved Taylor Swift has scored her very first chart-topping debut with her new album, Fearless.

Taylor sold 592,300 copies of her sophomore album last week, kicking David Archuleta’s ass and landing her at the top of the charts. It’s the highest-selling country debut in over a year.

Well done, little one.

“I think, as far as branching out with acting, it would take something really right on the mark to distract me from music, because music is everything to me. If it were ‘CSI’ or ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ or a movie that was really, really smart, then I think I might venture off … I think I’d rather be a patient, [but on] ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ I wouldn’t care what I was playing — I would play a corpse, ’cause I love it that much. It is deep true love and it will never die.”

The endearing, brilliant, talented and charming Taylor Swift, in a new interview with MTV.

“As soon as I accomplish one goal I replace it with another one,” she explains. “I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, ‘All right, well, I’d like to headline a tour,’ and then when I get there we’ll see what my next goal is.”

I just adore this girl. I think she’s so fantastic and has such a great head on her shoulders. She’s not even really a girl-crush for me, because I respect her. It’s not a crush thing. I, like, want to take her under my wing and protect her from the world and guide her and be like a big sister to her. She’s so precious!

My darling, precious Taylor Swift has been shooting her mouth off about what an asswipe Joe Jonas was in their relationship, ending it with a 27-second phone call before taking up with the chick from his music video.

Well, Joe is finally ready to talk back. In a not-at-all-veiled post on his MySpace blog, Joe says the following:

Several things I will state with all my heart…

I never cheated on a girlfriend. It might make someone feel better to assume or imply I have been unfaithful but it is simply not true. Maybe there were reasons for a breakup. Maybe the heart moved on. Perhaps feelings changed. I am truly saddened that anything would potentially cause you to think less of me.

For those who have expressed concern over the “27 second” phone call. I called to discuss feelings with the other person. Those feelings were obviously not well received. I did not end the conversation. Someone else did. Phone calls can only last as long as the person on the other end of the line is willing to talk. A phone call can be pretty short when someone else ends the call. The only difference in this conversation was that I shared something the other person did not want to hear.

There were later attempts at communication that had no response.

I wish the best for the other person but could not sit back any longer and leave our fans with a wrong impression of the truth.

Whatever, stupid JoBro. You were a dumbass to leave the gorgeous and uber-talented Taylor for that stupid chick with the weird eyebrows.

TEAM TAYLOR, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!