Music-buyers bought more copies of rapper 50 Cent [ tickets ]'s debut album than any other release during 2003, making "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" the No. 1 album of the year.

Released in February, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" sold about 6.5 million copies by the end of 2003, according to year-end figures released on Wednesday (12/31) by Nielsen SoundScan, the organization that tracks point-of-purchase album. That figure places the album more than 1 million copies ahead of its closest competitor, Norah Jones [ tickets ]' "Come Away with Me."

Spurred by its Album of the Year GRAMMY^® win, Jones' debut moved about 5.1 million copies in 2003. Following at No. 3 is Linkin Park [ tickets ]'s "Meteora," which racked up sales of about 3.5 million copies; the set is the follow-up to 2000's "Hybrid Theory," which was the top-selling album of 2001

Close behind is "Fallen," the breakout debut from goth rockers Evanescence [ tickets ]; the set claims the No. 4 spot with sales of about 3.4 million copies, enough to stay ahead of OutKast [ tickets ]'s "Speakerboxx/The Love Below," in at No. 5 with about 3 million copies sold.

Rounding out the Top 10 is Beyonce's "Dangerously In Love" at No. 6 with about 2.5 million copies sold; R. Kelly's "Chocolate Factory" with about 2.4 million copies sold; Hillary Duff's "Metamorphosis" with about 2.4 million copies sold; Toby Keith's "Shock N Y'All" with about 2.3 million copies sold; and Coldplay's "Rush of Blood to the Head" with about 2.2 million copies sold.

Industry snapshot

After a sales drop-off of almost 10 percent last year, the music industry seems to have slowed the bleeding; overall album sales for 2003 were down only 3.6 percent from last year's total. In raw numbers, that translates to total CD album-sales of about 635.8 million copies in 2003, versus about 649.5 million in 2001.

The online marketplace continues to perform, with Internet album sales up to about 21.7 copies this year, compared to about 18 million last year.

New this year to Neilsen-SoundScan's year-end report is the Digital Track Sales category, which the company began tracking this summer. Figures gathered indicate that digital-track sales from June 29 through Dec. 28 totaled about 19.2 million songs. Much of that number came from tracks sold via Apple's iTunes Music Store; launched in late-April, the store sold more than 25 million songs by year's end, according to Apple.

An area experiencing a massive growth spurt is DVD music-video sales; sales for 2003 were up 104.5 percent over last year.

• Get real-time updates on Twitter
• Visit us at Facebook