Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks point-of-purchase sales information for recorded music, has released its year-end sales report for 2006, and there is more good news than you might expect. (If you happen to own a record company, that is.) Overall music sales (including albums, singles, videos, and digital tracks) were 1.198 billion, up 19.4 percent over 2005. Digital tracks sales, predictably, gained big, up 65 percent over 2005 to 581.9 million. Album sales, however, were down 4.9 percent, from 618.9 million to 588.2 million. At this rate, it appears likely that digital track sales will exceed album sales by a couple hundred million by the end of 2007.