US album sales rise for the first time since 2004

Music sales in the US are rising for the first time since 2004. Totally 221.5 million albums (track equivalent albums) were sold in the first six months of 2011, up 3.6 percent from 213.6m in the same time last year.

It could seem like an insignificant grown but in this industry are any good news very refreshing. There was a downward spiral in this industry. Last year, two factors (collapse of CD sales and online piracy) forced music industry revenues down to $1.5bn.

People tend to prefer listening to a digital music and CDs become obsolete. And there is also another trend: people rather buy just tracks not all albums.

SoundScan's report also shows rapid growth of digital music. Sales for digital tracks increased by 11 percent this year and for digital albums even raised by 19 percent.

There are four artists who mainly caused this turnabout. Beyoncé's album "4" is holding No.1 on the Billboard album chart with 310,000 sales. The UK singer Adele (prize winner of two Grammy Awards in 2009) is No.2 with her album called 21. Other successful artists are Eminem with his album "Recovery" and Lady Gaga's "Born This Way".