Music

Adele's '21' is the first album to sell the most copies two years in a row since 'Thriller'

by Aaron Zorgel

The numbers are in for 2012’s top-selling albums, and Adele’s colossal tearjerker 21 sold 4.41 million copies this year, making it the highest seller for two years in a row. In 2011, 21 sold 5.82 million copies. This is the first time an album has sold the most copies for two consecutive calendar years since 1983 and 1984, when Michael Jackson’s Thriller dominated the charts.

Taylor Swift’s Red sold the second-most copies in 2012 (3.3 million), which is pretty impressive, considering the album only came out on October 22nd. UK boyband One Direction had the third and fifth highest selling records this year, while Mumford & Sons’ Babel fetched a fourth place showing.

Notably, vinyl sales rose for the fifth consecutive year in 2012, moving 4.55 million units, up 18% from 2011’s 3.87 million. The top-selling LP of 2012 was Jack White’s Blunderbuss, which moved 34,000 copies.

Digital song sales were up this year as well, selling 1.336 billion songs total, an increase of 5% from 2011’s numbers. Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know” sold 6.8 million downloads, and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” sold 6.47 million.

It looks like people bought music in 2012. Whodathunkit?