Coldplay, Kid Rock Have Biggest Rock Sellers Of 2008

Coldplay's Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends was the best-selling rock album of 2008, according to Billboard's year-end survey.

The British band's fourth studio effort sold 2.15 million copies and finished second overall only to rapper Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, which moved 2.88 million copies to land in the top spot. The next biggest-selling rock release was Kid Rock's 2007 outing, Rock 'n'Roll Jesus, which finished the year at Number Four with more than two million copies sold, despite not being available at iTunes.

Three more rock artists made it to the year-end Top 10. AC/DC's Black Ice made it to Number Five with 1.9 million copies sold since coming out this past October, while Metallica hit the seventh spot with its September release, Death Magnetic, which sold 1.57 million copies. Finally, singer Jack Johnson got 1.5 million record buyers to Sleep Through The Static for a Number Nine finish.

The rest of the year's Top 10 included Taylor Swift, whose two albums finished at Numbers Three and Six, rapper T.I. at Number Eight and Beyonce at Number 10.

Despite topping the chart, Tha Carter III was the first year-end Number One album to not sell more than three million copies since SoundScan sales tracking began in 1991. Overall album sales were down 14.4 percent, from 500.5 million copies in 2007 to 428.4 million in 2008.

Digital downloads accounted for 15.4 percent of overall album sales this year, up from 10 percent in 2007. Nearly 1.9 million vinyl records were sold in 2008 -- the most since tracking began in 1991 -- and the first time since 2004 that more than a million were sold.

More than one billion individual tracks were sold as digital downloads, the first time sales have gone over the billion mark since the format was launched.