The Recording Industry Association of America announced their first overall sales increase since 2004. Total shipments for 2011 surpassed $7 billion—a "boom" of 0.2 percent when compared with the previous year.

The RIAA released the 2011 year-end statistics this week, suggesting the industry's losing streak has finally ended.

There's no decisive reason cited for this growth, but certainly a number of likely factors exist. Subscription music services increased their revenue 13.5 percent, supporting the popularity of services like Spotify or Rdio. Music downloads also increased, both in singles (13.3 percent revenue increase) and albums (25.1 percent). Chief responsibility there could lie with Adele, whose 21 smashed many digital sales records including "Rolling In The Deep" becoming the second biggest digital single ever ("I Gotta' Feeling" from The Black Eyed Peas still eclipsed it as of early March. Weekend Ar(t)s weeps for America).

The RIAA's welcomed news should still be taken with a grain of salt. The industry is still reporting less than half the total value of its high in 1999. Revenue from physical sales was down 7.8 percent overall, with CDs down 8.5 percent in particular.

CD sales still account for more than $3 billion in revenue, compared to slightly over $1 billion for album downloads. Overall digital shipments do account for half of total shipments however. Audophiles can find some solace in the rise of vinyl revenue though, up 34 percent in 2011 (accounting for $119 million in sales).

One last interesting piece of RIAA data: this marked the first year royalties from "synchronization of recorded music with other content (such as movies, TV, video games, or other media)" was included. The RIAA mined data back to 2009 in order to compare. These royalties were up 4 percent, reaching $196 million for 2011.