TOP ALBUMS OF 2021

YEAR-END ALBUMS

2021

Birdy’s Young Heart debuted at No.1 on the Top Contemporary Albums Chart dated 10 May 2021, selling 93,000 units in its first week. The folky set would stay at No.1 in its second week, selling a further 74,000 copies; it was certified Gold in just two weeks, and was certified Platinum in its fifth week as it ranked at No.3, moving 46,000 units. In September, Heart earned a Double Platinum certification in its 20th charting week.

To date, Young Heart is Birdy’s most successful album on L.dK Weekly, having moved just under 800,000 units; it has also spent 19 weeks inside the Top Ten! As of the final week of 2021, Heart sits at No.23 on the Weekly Top Fifty – it has never left the Top Fifty during its 34-week tenure. It is also the singer’s first album to make the Top Ten on the Year-End Albums Chart; Beautiful Lies was responsible for her prior best showing, landing at No.25 for 2017.

Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia was the second-biggest hit of 2020, leading the chart for eight consecutive weeks in Spring-Summer. It sold 2.14 million that year, beaten only by Taylor Swift’s folklore (2.21 million).

This year, Future logged a further six months inside the Top Ten – reaching a peak of No.3 in April following the release of its Moonlight edition – and sold 867,000 copies to become the 10th bestselling LP of the year. It is one of multiple albums to have been present on the chart for the entire of 2021. In the final week of 2021, Lipa’s pop-masterpiece became the fifth album in history to be certified Diamond for selling 3 million copies – it achieved this in its 91st charting week!

Kate Bush’s The Whole Story sold 754,000 copies this week, landing at No.14 on the Year-End sales list, but thanks to its impressive chart longevity, it beats out some of its higher-selling counterparts for a Top Ten spot!

Story maintained a chart presence for the entire year, clocking up a whopping thirty-nine weeks inside the Top Ten, including seven weeks at its No.3 peak! The best-of set originally peaked at No.4 in 2017, and has seen a resurgance in sales which kicked off in 2020; Story ranked at No.10 on last year’s list.

The highest-performing compilation album of 2021: Stevie Nicks’s Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks. Another stalwart of the charts, Crystal re-entered the Top Twenty in January and soon reclaimed the No.1 spot which it would hold for a total of four consecutive weeks over the course of the year. The collection stayed inside the Top Ten for thirty-eight successive weeks, and has remained on the chart for the entire year.

Crystal was the No.3 biggest album of 2018, while it finished at No.21 in 2019; this year signals its return as the most successful compilation album of all time.

After debuting with 251,000 sales in December 2020 and scoring two straight weeks at No.1, Plastic Hearts was already a certified hit with sales of just over half-a-million by the New Year. It sustained its success well into the following year, spending a total of twenty-four weeks in the Top Ten, and never dipping below No.13.

Plastic finished at No.50 in 2020 despite its late-November release.

Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! makes history as it takes a Top Ten spot for a third successive year! Multiple albums have finished inside the Top Ten for two years; Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born – OST even topped both the 2018 and 2019 tallies, but fell to No.29 in 2020, and is down to No.64 this year.

NFR! landed at No.3 in 2019 and came out on top in 2020, selling 1.88 million and 1.67 million respectively. It sold 1.14 million this year – ranking No.7 for sales – and also becomes the first release to sell a million units in three seperate years.

NFR! ruled the charts for eight non-consecutive weeks this year, upping its total tenure at No.1 to a record-padding twenty-five weeks. It spent the whole year in the Top Ten, barring the single week where it placed at No.11.

Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club debuted at No.1 in March with the biggest sales week of the year at the time (160,000 units) and by its third week had been certified Platinum. The album has since sold 1.63 million copies to rank as the 3rd bestselling hit of both 2021 and Del Rey’s career.

Chemtrails – the most successful album released in 2021 – lived in the Top Ten for its first thirty-one weeks, and ranks at No.21 in its 40th charting week. It is the third album from Del Rey to achieve a Top Five position on a Year-End Albums Chart, following Lust for Life (No.3 – 2017) and NFR!.

Joni Mitchell’s Blue – an iconic female album, released originally in 1971 – debuted at No.1 in March, scoring opening week sales of 75,000 copies. It stayed at No.1 for a record-breaking twenty consecutive weeks, ruling until mid-July. The album achieved its greatest sales week in its eighth term at the top, moving 76,000 units. During its twenty-week stay at the summit, Blue accumulated sales of over 960,000 copies. By August, Blue had sold over a million copies, becoming Mitchell’s first record to do so.

For the week dated 04 October, Blue returned to the No.1 spot, selling 23,000 copies.

Blue has remained in the Top Ten for its entire forty-three-week chart run, and this year sold a massive 1.49 million units, making it the year’s 4th bestselling album.

folklore was the bestselling album of 2020 and broke the record for most sales of an album in a single year – 2.21 million sold. It’s success has continued well into 2021, with the album nabbing a Top Ten position every week until the char dated 13 December when it fell to No.12; it even returned to the No.1 spot twice; first on the chart dated 22 March, selling 73,000 units; and then on the chart dated 02 August, shifting 41,000 copies on the date of its anniversary.

With 2.00 million sales this year, folklore earns the fourth biggest yearly sales figure in history; its also the first album to rake in over 2 million sales in two seperate years. The juggernaut ranks as the year’s 2nd bestselling LP, and achieves a new best rank after finishing 2020 at No.4 among all albums.

Taylor Swift’s evermore was far-and-away the most successful album of 2021, despite being released in December 2020! The album commanded the charts for the first eleven weeks of the year, selling 1.30 million in this time. It would stay inside the Top Ten for the rest of the year, and in December would achieve Diamond status for selling 3 million copies.

During 2020, evermore sold 2.70 million units – beating its closest rival by a margin of over 700,000. It records the greatest yearly sales figure in history, surpassing Swift’s own folklore which sold 2.21 million in 2020.

GREATEST SALES YEARS

1. 2021 – evermore / Taylor Swift – 2.70 million
2. 2020 – folklore / Taylor Swift – 2.21 million
3. 2020 – Future Nostalgia / Dua Lipa – 2.14 million
4. 2021 – folklore / Taylor Swift – 2.00 million
5. 2020 – The Collection / Alanis Morissette – 1.90 million

BESTSELLING ALBUMS EACH YEAR

• 2017 – Lust for Life / Lana Del Rey – 1.86 million
• 2018 – A Star is Born / Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper – 1.57 million
• 2019 – Norman Fucking Rockwell! / Lana Del Rey – 1.88 million
• 2020 – folklore / Taylor Swift – 2.21 million
• 2021 – evermore / Taylor Swift – 2.70 million

Notably, this marks the first time in L.dK Chart history that an artist has claimed the top two biggest hits in any given year. Multiple artists have nabbed more than one space in the Top Ten, but have never monopolized the top two.

Bestselling Albums of 2021

1. evermore / Taylor Swift – 2.70 million
2. folklore / Taylor Swift – 2.00 million
3. Chemtrails Over the Country Club / Lana Del Rey – 1.63 million
4. Blue / Joni Mitchell – 1.49 million
5. 30 / Adele – 1.31 million
6. Plastic Hearts / Miley Cyrus – 1.25 million
7. Norman Fucking Rockwell! / Lana Del Rey – 1.14 million
8. If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power / Halsey – 927,000
9. Blue Banisters / Lana Del Rey – 911,000
10. Future Nostalgia / Dua Lipa – 867,000

Adele’s 30 and Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power narrowly miss out on Top Ten positions, coming it at No.12 and No.16 respectively.

Bestselling Albums of the Decade (So Far)

1. folklore / Taylor Swift – 4.21 million
2. evermore / Taylor Swift – 3.09 million
3. Future Nostalgia / Dua Lipa – 3.01 million
4. Norman Fucking Rockwell! / Lana Del Rey – 2.82 million
5. The Collection / Alanis Morissette – 2.39 million
6. Chromatica / Lady Gaga – 2.01 million
7. A Beautiful Collection / Carole King – 1.89 million
8. Plastic Hearts / Miley Cyrus – 1.75 million
9. Chemtrails Over the Country Club / Lana Del Rey – 1.63 million
10. Blue / Joni Mitchell – 1.49 million

YEAR-END ALBUMS

INDUSTRY SALES

2021 – The Biggest Year in Music History!

Since the beginning of 2021, a record-breaking 41.65 million albums have been sold, making it the biggest year since L.dK Weekly launched in 2017, and marks a fourth consecutive year of growth. The previous biggest year in music was 2020, when 40.25 million albums were consumed.

In addition, eight months of 2021 were the biggest on record in terms of albums sold, with November experiencing an all-time sales high of 4.71 million units!

Helping to swell this year’s record figures: the seven top-selling albums of the year each moved over a million units. In 2017, the first year of L.dK Weekly, three albums topped a million, while two did so in 2018. 2019 saw six LP’s cross the mark, while 2020 holds the record with seven million-selling albums.

2021 – Monthly Sales

• January – 3.03 million
• February – 2.94 million
• March – 4.13 million
• April – 3.36 million
• May – 4.11 million
• June – 3.29 million
• July – 2.65 million
• August – 3.64 million
• September – 3.18 million
• October – 2.61 million
• November – 4.71 million
• December – 3.95 million

Biggest Months on Record

• January 2021 – 3.03 million
• February 2021 – 2.94 million
• March 2021 – 4.13 million
• April 2020 – 3.93 million
• May 2021 – 4.11 million
• June 2020 – 4.65 million
• July 2020 – 3.82 million
• August 2020 – 4.05 million
• September 2021 – 3.18 million
• October 2021 – 2.61 million
• November – 4.71 million
• December – 3.95 million

Music Industry Year by Year

• 2017 – 20.63 million (adj.)
• 2018 – 21.22 million (adj.) [+2.8%]
• 2019 – 26.14 million [+23.1%]
• 2020 – 40.25 million [+53.9%]
• 2021 – 41.65 million [+3.4%]

Notably, this year’s music totals are just over double the adjusted figure for 2017, the first year of L.dK Weekly. 2021 needed just twenty-six weeks to surpasses 2017’s haul of 20.6 million; the following week it topped 2018’s draw of 21.22 million. In its thirty-fourth week, 2021 surpassed the entire year of 2019 (26.14 million), and in its fifty-first week it topped 2020’s total!

To date, L.dK Weekly has recorded total industry sales of 135.77 million units, dating to the chart’s inception in 2017.