I don't know if anyone noticed but on the BBC UK link posted in another thread about the Sperm Race, there was a sidebar story on this topic.

US music bounces back from slump.

Which is interesting, mostly for this comment:

In reply to:

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For the first time since 2000, two albums - by Norah Jones and Usher - had weekly sales of more than one million.

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Which, ignoring all the other predictable BS in the article, indicates that probably the real underlying reason for poor CD sales for 3+ years has been lack of quality (album) music for people to actually buy.

I don't think anyone would consider that the P2P reached the mainstream until 2001 or later, so that the lack of "1 million a week" sales is probably not due to P2P and more likely other things (e.g. lack of decent music that folks want to buy).

There may be a related reason due to improving economic outlook.

And in addtion, the success of iTunes and other online music sellers (what others?) has not obviously impacted US sales of Albums yet.

It may well be that the top selling iTunes singles are those of the top selling artists, showing once again that there is a link between sales of "singles" and albums as those who buy the single and like it end up buying the entire album - as used to happen 10 years or so ago, when singles were more commonly available.

Whichever factor are the actual cause of this uptick in sales I don't think the RIAA can pat itself on the back for a job well done in shutting down P2P file sharers.

Still no doubt there will be a press release from them soon trumpeting that fact