But the 90's is not a good / true benchmark. In the 90's, for the most part the music industry pushed CD's and did not do CD singles. Therefore, if you liked a single song you'd have to buy the full CD (approx $15 to $17). That is, music sales were inflated.
Eventually, this also helped set the stage for Napster, etc. The public didn't want to spend $15+ dollars for s single. And after getting too many one-hit wonders the public was glad to have it's needs met and were even happier when that was also form of revenge against the music industry.
The artificial peak of the 90's was also one of the reasons the music industry took so long to adjust to digital (read: a return to singles buying normalcy). They go so used to those revenues that they forgot what reality was like.
> At the 1999 peak ... according to the music trade group International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, across the total 18-and-over population (both across many countries or individually within one), the average amount spent came to $28 per consumer.
Moving on:
> But that includes people who did not buy any music that year. If we look at just the consumers who bought music, they spent $64 on average that year.
> Another study by NPD Group in 2011 found similar spending, about $55 per music buyer per year on all forms of recorded music
Note, that's all forms of music.
> about $12 per iTunes account per quarter is spent on music, or about $48 per year.
Great graph! It doesn't take much away from your observation about the increase recently, but I do think it's fair to point out that you should click the "Adjusted for inflation" button for a fair comparison.
Citation needed
My understanding is that total spending on recorded music is way down from heights in the 90's. I could be wrong though.