Boomer Blues.(album sales)

A world without the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" or Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" is hard to imagine. Musicians have long considered the album to be the pinnacle of their art, the rich, melodic equivalent of a great novel. Groundbreaking albums sought to capture the spirit of an age; Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" was influenced by letters his brother sent back from the war in Vietnam. Crosby, Stills & Nash's eponymous debut captured hippie ideals of peace and love. But in recent years, as music lovers have flocked to download singles--first from illegal Napster, then legal iTunes--critics have loudly heralded the album's demise. By 2008, analysts predicted, one third of all music played would be downloaded from the Web, most of it in the form of singles. "Plastic ain't where it's at anymore," says Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research. "The album is dead."

Not quite. As labels seek to reverse a recession that saw global music sales plummet nearly 11 percent in the first half of 2003, they're increasingly looking to the past for inspiration, pinning their hopes on albums by a new generation of dazzling young singers. Norah Jones's low-key, jazzy "Come Away With Me," the surprise hit of 2002, revealed a deep demand for beautifully crafted songs. Last month Jamie Cullum's "Twentysomething," featuring funky takes on old favorites like "Old Devil Moon," became the first album by a British jazz singer to go platinum. Canadian crooner Michael Buble, whose slick style has been compared to Sinatra's, also saw his eponymous debut hit platinum. And the 16-year-old Brit Joss Stone is winning rave reviews for "Soul Sessions," her sultry take on classics like Aretha Franklin's "All the King's Horses."

These talented new stars are helping boost sales and revitalize an industry cheapened by years of cookie-cutter pop and crippled by piracy. Captivating performers, says Max Hole, senior vice president of A&R and marketing at Universal Music, translate into album sales, which were up 7.6 percent in Britain last quarter. "If [fans] are interested in the artist, they won't just download a track, they'll want to buy the album," he says. That's quite a turnaround from recent years, when big record companies inadvertently encouraged singles downloading by hyping flash-in-the-pan songsters--many generated by reality-TV shows. Last year almost half of American 12- to 22-year-olds chose to download just their favorite tunes instead ...