While much of the focus in the music world is on digital music, it may be surprising to learn that right now the CD is still the dominant format that music is sold on in America. NPD Group has released its figures for the music industry sales volume. According the company the sales of music on CD made up 65% of all music sold in the first half of 2009. By comparison, paid digital downloads accounted for 35% of music sales. In 2007, digital music downloads only accounted for about 20% of music sales and in 2008 digital sales made up 30% of the market.

"Many people are surprised that the CD is still the dominant music delivery format, given the attention to digital music and the shrinking retail footprint for physical products," said Russ Crupnick, vice president of entertainment industry analysis "But with digital music sales growing at 15 to 20 percent, and CDs falling by an equal proportion, digital music sales will nearly equal CD sales by the end of 2010."

The clear leader in music sales overall counting digital and CD sales is Apple iTunes. ITunes sold 25% of all music in the U.S., an increase from 21% of the sales in 2008. Walmart holds second place for the most music sold with 14% of the music sold. Best Buy was third overall music sales. In pure digital music sales, iTunes again leads the pack with a massive 69% of the digital music market. AmazonMP3 is second with 8% of the market.

"The growth of legal digital music downloads, and Apple's success in holding that market, has increased iTunes's overall strength in the retail music category," said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group. "But the importance of the big box retailers shouldn't be dismissed, as long as the majority of music consumers continue to buy CDs."

Apple announced in July that it would be offering new bundles of digital music with other content in a project called cocktail. Cocktail is a way for Apple to help record labels make more money from digital sales and entice buyers to purchase complete albums.