Nielsen SoundScan has published its end-of-year charts for 2011, with Adele sitting proudly atop both the album and singles lists. Her album ’21′ sold 5.82m units in the US last year, while single ‘Rolling in the Deep’ shifted 5.81m downloads. As in the UK, Michael Buble took second place in the albums chart with 2.45m sales of ‘Christmas’, followed by Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ (2.1m units). Album sales actually rose in the US last year by 1% to 330.57m units, with CD sales down 6% and digital album sales up 20% to 103.1m. That included 1.8m digital sales of ’21′ – 30.9% of its overall sales. 2011 was also the first year that any song sold more than 5m downloads – besides ‘Rolling in the Deep’, LMFAO’s ‘Party Rock Anthem’ sold 5.47m units, with Katy Perry’s ‘E.T.’ not far behind on 4.83m. Digital single-track sales were up 8.5% for the year to 1.27bn units.
Adele tops 2011 US albums chart with 5.82m sales
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January 5th, 2012 by Music Ally
