The good news is: the US RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has announced the 2011 sales figures and they are not bad: the Music Industry weighted $7.01 billion and music shipments went up 0.2 percent - a first since 2004. Digital sales account for 50% of it but the odd thing is that bloody vinyl that won't just die as, wow, LP sales were 5.5 million and the, i'm trembling while writing this, 45rpm doubled its market share !

Quite amazing in this era where most of us don't even know the names of all the bands featured in our mp3 player, isn't it ? And to double the fun, we celebrated a few days ago the 45 years anniversary of the most well known record cover ever: Sgt Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles.

Originally conceptualized as being a band playing music by The Beatles, that cover was very expensive for the times. The picture was done by Michael Cooper but Peter Blake did the actual cover and all the cuts and repainting. The illustrious sleeve shows The Beatles looking at The Beatles, surrounded by celebrities and iconic people of the era: you have the obvious (James Dean and Marilyn Monroe among others) but also the strange ones...