Lady Gaga And Eminem To Thank For Music Industry Recovery?

Music artists such as Lady Gaga and Eminem are creating an upward trend for the music industry, the first in many years.

Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks album unit sales, both physical and digital, recently released a report that stated an 8.5% in music sales for the first 2 quarters of 2011.

Eminem passed the 1 million digital album sales record this past week, and Lady Gaga so far has sold more than 1.5 million copies of her 'Born This Way' album.

According to the report, digital track sales have increased year on year by 11% while digital album sales also rose by 19%. This is the first time there has been an increase in music sales for the industry since 2004, when CD sales plummeted. In fact, digital sales could pick up over the next few years if there is more regulation over illegal music downloads.

Youtube, Dailymotion and other websites have recently cracked down on illegal music sharing, but there is still much work to do in the wider industry.

Eminem's 'Recovery' album and Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' could be the first digital records to create momentum behind digital downloading.

Can digital downloads finally return much needed profits to labels after years of slow growth with a music industry in crisis?