Adele's 21 History In The Making

Article by: Rizal Li

For the past few years, many singers are struggled to sell their album and sold at least 10 million copies. Well, it might be normal back in the 90’s to sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, nowadays an album that pass 2 million sales mark is already considered a HIT album. Back in the day, an album that sold that much is labelled as FLOP.


Well, selling album might be hard nowadays as consumers are given a choice whether to download only the song the like or buy the album that contains song that they like. It might be a tough choice as consumer might afraid the rest of the songs in the album are just filler songs.

Well, if we take a look at music history, most of the best selling albums came from the 90’s era. The era when music industry at its peak.

Note: Figures below are just estimated figures

Here some proof:
WHITNEY HOUSTON – (The Bodyguard; 1992) 45 mil sold
SHANIA TWAIN – (Come On Over; 1997) 40 mil sold
ALANIS MORISSETTE – (Jagged Little Pill; 1995) 33 mil sold
CELINE DION – (Falling Into You; 1996) 32 mil sold
MARIAH CAREY – (Music Box; 1993) 32 mil sold

And there are few albums that are able to reach 10 million copies in the early 2000’s:

NORAH JONES – (Come Away With Me; 2002) 26 mil sold
MADONNA – (Music; 2000) 15 mil sold
MARIAH CAREY – (The Emancipation of Mimi; 2005) 15 mil sold
MADONNA – (Confession on a Dance Floor; 2005) 12 mil sold
JENNIFER LOPEZ – (J.Lo; 2002) 12 mil sold
CHRISTINA AGUILERA – (Stripped; 2002) 12 Million sold

Surprisingly, this newcomer in the music industry ADELE broke many records and the most important thing she made it in the year of 2011-2012! THE YEAR when album sales are almost DEAD.

21’s Achievements :
- Adele claimed Guinness World Records for becoming the first female artist to have two singles and two albums in the UK top five simultaneously
- Certified 15-times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry for shipments of 4,500,000 units, the highest ever certified album in the UK
- The album spent 71 consecutive weeks in the UK Top 10
- 21 also became the best-selling digital album of all time in the U.S., selling 2 million copies as of January 2012
- Longest-running number-one album by a female solo artist ever in the U.S
- 21 is also the only album in the first half of 2012 in the US to sell over a million copies (21 sold 3,668,000 copies in the first six months of 2012 in the US)

These are the record of 21 sales:
Week 1: 359.000
Week 2: 252.000
Week 3: 224.000
Week 4: 259.000
Week 5: 635.000
Week 6: 452.000
Week 7: 378.000
Week 8: 345.000
Week 9: 342.000
Week 10: 447.000

Week 11: 296.000
Week 12: 295.000
Week 13: 354.000
Week 14: 303.000
Week 15: 343.000
Week 16: 339.000
Week 17: 296.000
Week 18: 278.000
Week 19: 282.000
Week 20: 274.000

Week 21: 276.000
Week 22: 242.000
Week 23: 222.000
Week 24: 221.000
Week 25: 217.000
Week 26: 222.000
Week 27: 224.000
Week 28: 212.000
Week 29: 218.000
Week 30: 224.000

Week 31: 234.000
Week 32: 314.000
Week 33: 285.000
Week 34: 276.000
Week 35: 262.000
Week 36: 261.000
Week 37: 261.000
Week 38: 255.000
Week 39: 243.000
Week 40: 243.000

Week 41: 250.000
Week 42: 245.000
Week 43: 260.000
Week 44: 327.000
Week 45: 395.000
Week 46: 499.000
Week 47: 706.000
Week 48: 957.000
Week 49: 394.000
Week 50: 309.000

Week 51: 260.000
Week 52: 244.000
Week 53: 254.000
Week 54: 254.000
Week 55: 369.000
Week 56: 979.000
Week 57: 520.000
Week 58: 429.000
Week 59: 348.000
Week 60: 303.000

Week 61: 247.000
Week 62: 228.000
Week 63: 271.000
Week 64: 201.000
Week 65: 188.000
Week 66: 177.000
Week 67: 161.000
Week 68: 187.000
Week 69: 141.000
Week 70: 127.000

Week 71: 127.000
Week 72: 140.000
Week 73: 133.000
Week 74: 110.000
Week 75: 102.000
Week 76: 102.000
Week 77: 102.000
Week 78: 97.000
Week 79: 87.000
Week 80: 92.000

Week 81: 85.000
Week 82: 83.000

Total = 23, 191, 000 (23.1 mil)  Updated: 24th August 2012

TheDivaJuice: I guess this album will sold more than 25 million copies till the year end. As for now there will three people crying over Adele success.