Music sales are up for the first time since 2004.
According to the Nielsen SoundScan midyear report, overall music sales  — including albums, singles, music videos and digital tracks — have increased 8.5 percent in the first quarter from $756 million in 2010 to $821 million.
The top selling album at this point in 2011 is Adele’s “21,” selling more 2.5 million copies. In second and third place were Lady Gaga’s album “Born this Way” and Mumford & Sons’ “Sigh No More,” respectively.
In the running for top selling song were Katy Perry’s “E.T.” and Adele’s “Rolling into the Deep,” with Perry selling a marginal 31,000 units more.
Electronic, new age, rap, rock and classical genres increased in sales, while others  — like country and R&B  — declined or stayed the same.
Many credit the sales increase to the recent shutdown of illegal downloading hubs such as LimeWire.
After ten years of operation, the peer-to-peer file sharing application was issued an injunction in New York Court and shut down in May 2010.
The company was charged with intentionally encouraging infringement on a “massive scale” by allowing 50 million monthly users to share thousands of copyrighted materials.
Biology senior Alyssa Lanier said she has felt the effects of LimeWire’s closure.
“Now that LimeWire is out of the picture I have been forced to buy more of my music,” she said.
Lanier said her favorite album of the year was Adele’s “21.”
Kinesiology sophomore Andrew Lunceford said there are still ways to get music.
“I never used LimeWire anyway. I buy most of my music on iTunes,” he said. “But I also know there are ways of converting YouTube videos into music files, and artists put a lot of their music out there for