It took nearly six years for the music world to receive a new project from Adele, but her fourth album 30 was undoubtedly worth the wait. The 12-track release arrived after weeks of anticipation and exciting moments from the singer. There was her well-received lead single, “Easy On Me,” that spent four weeks at No. 1 as well as a beautiful TV special with CBS where she performed new and old songs from her career and spoke about her inspiration behind 30. Now, to the surprise of no one, Adele earns her third consecutive No. 1 album with a monster first week.
30 debuts at the top of the Billboard 200 chart dated December 4 thanks to 839,000 album units sold in its first week. This number is comprised heavily of pure album sales as 692,000 units were sold in its first week. 30 also posted 141,000 streaming equivalent album units thanks to 185.39 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs. When looking at album sales and nothing else, 30 easily takes the title of 2021’s biggest-selling album. Billboard reports that it surpasses the “total sales of any album over the past 11 months combined.”
The first-week number for 30 not only gives it the biggest week in 2021, but the biggest sales week in four years. The last time an album sold more copies in a single week was back in 2017 with Taylor Swift’s Reputation tallied 1.216 million copies sold in its first week on the albums chart. Lastly, 30 also earns the fourth-largest streaming debut by a woman in 2021.
Elsewhere, Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) checks in at No. 2 and Drake’s Certified Lover Boy follows at No. 3.
