Adele’s 21 has underlined its status as one of the most successful albums this century after selling its 10-millionth copy this week. The album, by far and away 2011’s top seller worldwide, has taken little more than seven months since release to break the 10 million mark and looks likely to reach 13 million sales by the end of the year.
At a time when even the biggest albums globally struggle to sell more than 5 million copies in a calendar year, the XL album’s performance has been remarkable.And the story does not end there with 21 on course to reach 3 million UK sales this week in record-breaking time.
It has been number one in 19 countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany and the US, where it is the year-to-date’s top album by some distance, it sold its three-millionth copy there last month, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It is also the first album by a British artist to reach this landmark in the States since Boyle’s debut two years
ago.
Unless something extraordinary happens during the last four months of 2011, 21’s success will also mean the top-selling artist album globally will be by a British artist for the fourth time in five years following Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black (2007), Coldplay’s Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends (2008) and Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream (2009).
Meanwhile, in the UK 21’s sales reached 2.98 million units last week, according to the Official Charts Company, and are set to hit 3 million by the end of the week. Sales this week were strengthened by Adele’s appearance on Jonathan Ross’s new ITV1 chat show where she performed Turning Tables. However, she had to pull out of the first two dates of her UK tour last Sunday and Monday because of illness.
