Katy Perry topped the Billboard 200 this week, the weekly ranking of albums by units sold, having sold 192,000 copies of her album Teenage Dream.  Yes, you read correctly, that’s 192 thousand.

To put this in perspective, during Michael Jackson’s Thriller album’s reign atop the Billboard 200 into 1983, it sold 29 million copies.

Okay, so you might argue that Katy Perry can kiss a girl but couldn’t kiss the pinkie on the glove of the King of Pop. So let’s take another #1 album from the Billboard 200: English pop/rock back Tears for Fears, the perfect example of a “three-hit wonder” (all rights reserved on that term, Pat Riley). Tears for Fears held the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 in July 1985 with their album Songs from the Big Chair, reaching certified triple-platinum in the UK and quintuple-platinum in the US.  For those readers not born before the iPod, that means 8 million albums sold.

Not that we need more evidence, but this 40x disparity represents yet another data point of the disruption of the music industry.  The days when the majors could pad a couple hits with 8~10 tracks of dogs (the Killer & Filler model) are thankfully behind us.

Thanks to digital music, it’s all about the single.  Consumers are no longer forced to purchase a garbage track, even at the bargain price of 99 cents.  It’s a wonder that any complete album these days comes anywhere close to shifting 1 million units sold.

Coincidentally, this ranking juxtaposes with this month’s settlement talks between private equity firm Terra Firma and Citigroup in attempt to solve record major EMI’s debt servicing problem.