Only 12 'new' artists (without major label support) sold more than 10,000 copies of an album in the US in 2008

"Looking at the 1517 albums that were released in 2008 and sold more than 10,000 units in 2008 we find that only 225 of them were by artists that had surpassed 10,000 for the first time in their career (either by themselves or with another band).
The vast majority of these were released by significant indies (110) or majors (103). Last Friday, I thought that only 14 of those were self released artists or artists on start up labels. Further inspection disqualified two of them. One was a gospel record whose Bishop had exceeded 10,000 in the past under a slightly different name and the other was a Soundscan placeholder for a title distributed by Anderson Wholesale, the distributor for Walmart, that showed the title “TBD.” We had thought it was a Dutch electronic artist called Anderson but alas, nay.
Who were these valiant artists? A quick inspections indicated that beyond Bon Iver, the real indie artist success story of 2008, there were three hip hop artists, one that had financing of $10 a unit in marketing spend to sell under 30,000 units, another associated with the big indie hip hop powerhouse Tech N9ne and the last a gospel hip hop artist. The rest were largely alternative rock artists, two had been contestants in America’s Got Talent or American Idol and a few others were on small labels with big budgets."
Source: Musicial Coaching, 20th January 2010 (which also lists the 12 artists)
Update - 22nd Janaury 2010 - These figures and the conclusions are being disputed on the grounds that:
1 - Tracks are a better measure than albums
2 - Not all tracks or albums are registered with Nielsen Soundscan