First album to top the global chart for two consecutive years

Adele’s (UK, b. Adele Adkins) 21 was the biggest-selling album in the world for an unprecedented two years in a row: 2011 and 2012. The award-winning XL/Columbia Records set, which smashed a host of chart and sales records following its worldwide release in early 2011, shifted 18.1 million copies in 2011 and 8.3 million copies in 2012 to become the first album to top the global albums chart in successive years since the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) introduced its global best-sellers list in 2001. 21’s worldwide sales of 26.4 million copies to the end of 2012 put it comfortably among the 50 biggest-selling albums of all time. The top 5 biggest-selling albums of 2012 were: Adele’s 21 (8.3 million copies sold); Taylor Swift’s Red (5.2 million); One Direction’s Up All Night (4.5 million); One Direction’s Take Me Home (4.4 million); Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die (3.4 million). The figures were reported in the IFPI’s “Digital Music Report”, published on 26 February 2013. Additionally, in the USA 21 sold 5.82 million copies in 2011 and 4.41 million copies in 2012 to become - appropriately - the 21st album to amass sales of at least 10 million copies in the USA in the Nielsen SoundScan era (since 1991). In 2012 in the USA, 21 (which made its chart debut on 21 March 2011) sold 1.30 million copies more than the No.2 biggest-seller, Taylor Swift’s Red.