2021 ENDS WITH ADELE STILL LODGED AT NO.1!
As 30 leads for fifth week, Kelly Clarkson, Michael Buble, Annie Lennox & Kate Bush send seasonal hits into the Top Ten; Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia goes Diamond!
Adele’s 30 which earlier this year became the fastest-selling album of all time, debuting at No.1 with 650,000 copies sold, logs a fifth straight week out in front as the most popular album of the moment.
30 sold 152,000 units this week, marking a sales increase of 10.9% compared to the previous week when the record moved 137,000 units. Since its release, 30 has sold 1.313 million copies, becoming Adele’s second album to be certified Quadruple Platinum for sales of over 1.2 million!
By reaching sales of 1.2 million in just five weeks, Adele’s blockbuster becomes the fastest album to do so, passing Lady Gaga’s Chromatica which sold 1.28 million in seven weeks in 2020.
Updated Accolades:
- 5th bestselling album of 2021
- 15th bestselling album of the decade
- 33rd bestselling album of all time
Adele’s catalogue drew total sales of 181,000 units, making her the most popular artist of the week for a fifth straight frame.
Christmas Hits: Kelly Clarkson’s Wrapped in Red leads a flurry of seasonal hits as it rockets 21-2 on sales of 50,000 copies – surging by 316 percent from the previous week’s haul of 12,000 units.
Red is Clarkson’s third Top-Five hit, following Meaning of Life (No.1) and Greatest Hits: So Far… (No.2). It is also her third album to be certified at least Silver, as Hits has been certified Gold and Meaning has been certified Double Platinum!
Michael Buble’s Christmas meanwhile debuts at No.4 shifting 43,000 units in its first week on sale.
Two stalwart figures of music history also enter the Top Ten with seasonal hits: Annie Lennox’s A Christmas Cornucopia reaches a new highpoint of No.8 (up from its previous peak of No.12) as it sells 27,000 copies (up sixty-eight percent); Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow drifts 14-9 on sales of 25,000 units (up seventy-eight percent) after previously peaking at No.12.
Lana Del Rey’s Blue Banisters sinks 2-3 selling 48,000 units (down two percent) as it passes sales of 900,000 units in its ninth week on sale. Blue is Del Rey’s sixth album to be certified at least Triple Platinum!
- 15 x Platinum – Norman Fucking Rockwell!
- 9 x Platinum – Lust for Life
- 5 x Platinum – Chemtrails Over the Country Club
- 3 x Platinum – Born to Die: the Paradise Edition; Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass; Blue Banisters
NFR! meanwhile reverses course 6-10 – although is up twenty-seven percent to 23,000 sold – as it tallies a record-extending 112th week inside the Top Ten!
Taylor Swift’s evermore steps down 4-5 on sales of 39,000 copies (up five percent) as her Red (Taylor’s Version) slides 3-6 with 35,000 sold (down seventeen percent).
Finally, Joni Mitchell’s iconic set Blue descends 5-7, selling a further 28,000 copies (up twenty-one percent).
Onto Next Week: Adele’s 30 should be bound for a sixth consecutive week at the summit, likely with sales of over 100,000 units. Cyndi Lauper’s Twelve Deadly Cyns… could also be on track for a Top Ten start, with over 30,000 units.
Notable Moves in the Top Fifty!
No.15 – folklore / Taylor Swift’s juggernaut – the essential record of 2020’s lockdown season – descends 11-15, selling 17,000 copies in its seventy-fourth week inside the Top Fifty. The album has now sold a total of 4.213 million units, becoming only the second album in history to be certified 14 x Platinum for sales exceeding 4.2 million!
No.19 – Christmas & Chill / As her 2014 Christmas EP debuts at No.19, Grande collects her sixth Top Twenty hit. It joins 2016’s Dangerous Woman (No.8); 2018’s Sweetener (No.1 for three weeks); 2019’s thank u, next (No.1 for four weeks); and 2020’s K Bye for Now (No.2) and Positions (No.1 for thre weeks).
No.20 – Future Nostalgia: Moonlight Edition / Dua Lipa’s sophomore studio album debuted at No.1 and spent eight weeks at the top spot over the Spring and Summer of 2020, selling 2.14 million copies and ending 2020 as the year’s No.2 biggest album! This week, as it clocks its 91st appearance on L.dK Weekly, it surpasses sales of 3 million copies, becoming just the fifth album in history to be certified Diamond! It comes just two weeks after Taylor Swift’s evermore became the fourth album to top sales of 3 million.
No.26 – Positions / Ariana Grande’s late-2020 smash has now topped sales of 1.2 million copies, becoming the singer’s third album to do so following Sweetener and thank u, next; those albums have been certified 7 x Platinum and 4 x Platinum respectively.
No.43 – Little Earthquakes / Tori Amos’s 1992 debut album is her biggest hit by a country-mile! This week, it becomes her first to sell over 1.2 million units – her second biggest-seller is 1994’s Under the Pink which has sold 180,000 to date.
No.47 – The Red Shoes / Kate Bush’s 1993 effort is her longest charting studio album – having clocked up 72 weeks on the chart – and this week becomes her second collection to sell more than one million copies! Her 1986 compilation album The Whole Story has sold 1.75 million to date.
L.dK Weekly Top 50
L.dK Weekly Top Artists
Industry Sales
Industry sales for the week stand at 1.001 million units, rising by 6.7% from the previous week’s figure of 938,000 units. Compared to the same week last year (when 865,000 albums were sold), consumption is up by 15.7%!
1.001 million is the third-largest sales week of the year, behind the weeks dated 29 November and 06 December when 1.435 and 1.047 million albums were sold.
Note
Certifications: Silver (60,000); Gold (100,000); Platinum (300,000); Multi-Platinum (600,000 etc.); Diamond (3,000,000).
L.dK Music 