Adele fuels recovery in music sales

Album sales for the first half of 2011 were up for the first time since 2004 and its looking a lot like an Adele fuelled recovery.

Adele's '21' is by far the biggest seller of 2011 with 2,517,000 units sold to date according to Nielsen Soundscan. Lady Gaga is second with 'Born This Way' on 1,540,000.

Adele also has the top selling digital album with '21' selling 992,000 downloads and the top selling digital track with 'Rolling In The Deep' selling 4,067,000 downloads.

Meanwhile her earlier album '19' has moved 341,000 units so far this year.

In total, 103 million albums have sold in the first half of 2011. CD sales accounted for 66% of sales, down from 71% for the first half of 2010.

Vinyl albums continue their upwards swing with 41% growth so far this year. The Beatles 1969 album 'Abbey Road' is the biggest vinyl seller.

Other benchmarks for 2011:

Eminem 'Recovery' became the first album to sell more than 1,000,000 downloads on July 3, 2011. Adele '21' should beta Eminem's figure next week.

Black Eyed Peas 'I Gotta Feeling' became the first song to sell more than 7 million downloads.

Lady Gaga 'Born This Way' was the fasting selling album of the year with 1,108,000 units sold in the first week.

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