For the second consecutive year, Adele's album 21 has been named the best-selling record in the United States. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the LP sold 4.41 million copies in 2012, only 25% less than the 5.82 million it shifted in the year of its release, 2011. The album has remained in the weekly top 40 since debuting at number one in March 2011.
This achievement places Adele in an exclusive club of only three other albums that have topped the US sales charts in two successive years. The last to do so was Michael Jackson's Thriller in 1984 and 1985. Before that, the soundtracks to West Side Story (1962-63) and My Fair Lady (1957-58) accomplished the feat.
The 2012 US charts were dominated by British acts. Aside from Taylor Swift's Red (3.11 million sales), the top five albums were all by UK artists. One Direction's Up All Night sold 1.62 million, and their second album Take Me Home was fifth. Mumford & Sons' Babel sold 1.46 million, placing fourth.
On the singles side, Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know sold 6.8 million copies, mostly digital. Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe and Fun.'s We Are Young followed, with all three breaking the previous digital sales record set by Adele's Rolling in the Deep. Overall album sales fell from 331 million in 2011 to 316 million in 2012, but vinyl sales increased by 18%, driven by titles such as Jack White's Blunderbuss and the Beatles' reissued Abbey Road. However, vinyl still accounts for less than 2% of all album sales.
Meanwhile, Britain's best-selling album of 2012, Emeli Sandé's Our Version of Events, has not charted in the US.
