Adele's '21' Set for 21st Week at No. 1

Adele's "21" album is going to celebrate its first year on the Billboard 200 chart in grand style. Fresh off her six Grammy Award wins on Sunday (Feb. 12) night, "21" is on course to sell between 500,000 to 600,000 copies by week's end on Sunday, Feb. 19.

Adele's '21' Hits 20th Week at No. 1, Van Halen at No. 2

Next week will mark the set's 52nd week on the list and it should easily rack up a 21st frame at No. 1. It could earn the biggest sales week for any album since Drake's "Take Care" debuted with 631,000 on the chart dated Dec. 3, 2011 according to Nielsen SoundScan. Even better - it will be "21's" biggest sales week, period. It's highest week came over the Christmas holiday, when it shifted 399,000.


Adele's first album, "19," is also selling well, and should move into the top five on the Billboard 200 next week. The last act to have two albums in the top five at the same time was Justin Bieber on March 12, 2011 ("Never Say Never: the Remixes" was No. 2 and "My World 2.0" was No. 5).

The new Billboard 200 chart's top 10 will be revealed on the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 22.

With a 21st week at No. 1, "21" will become the longest-running No. 1 album by a woman in history. (It's currently tied with Whitney Houston's "The Bodyguard" soundtrack, with 20 weeks.) Further, "21" could become the biggest No. 1 album by any act since M.C. Hammer's "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em" spent 21 weeks at No. 1 in 1990.

Here are the albums with the most weeks at No. 1 in the nearly-56 year history of the Billboard 200 chart: (Weeks at No. 1, Title, Artist, Peak Year)

54 -- "West Side Story soundtrack, 1962**
37 -- "Thriller," Michael Jackson, 1983
31 -- "Rumours," Fleetwood Mac, 1977
31 -- "South Pacific" soundtrack, 1958
31 -- "Calypso," Harry Belafonte, 1956
24-- "Purple Rain," Prince and the Revolution/Soundtrack, 1984
24 -- "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, 1978
21 -- "21," Adele, 2011
21 -- "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em," M.C. Hammer, 1990
20 -- "The Bodyguard," Whitney Houston/Soundtrack, 1992
20 -- "Blue Hawaii," Elvis Presley/Soundtrack, 1961

Tragedy really.....

Very pleased!!! I wonder if it will beat Rumours/31 and even thriller.

It's an extraordinary achievement, especially when you consider that the last album to join that list appeared nearly 20 years ago.

I hope it tops SNF and Purple Rain, but if it beats Rumours and Thriller, that will be incredible!

Interesting. Wonder what the sales are for each album and also what is the uk and world comparison.

Every time I look at that list I sh!t myself. 21 is in rarified company. SNL and PR can be topped. Not sure about the 31 weeks. And Thriller and West Side Story are safe.

I am so proud of the American music consumers.
Hell yeah!

we are experiencing music History! LOL

It's conceivable she will also have 3 singles in the Top 10 of the Hot100. Now that's not something that happens every day

Amazing really that such a poor album could do so well, meh, i guess people really fall for the hype.

Am I the only one who found this tidbit the most surprising thing?! I mean, what the...

It's surprising but I'm old enough to remember just how huge he was for about, err, a couple of years. He was bloody everywhere...

Honestly who is left to actually buy this album other than newborn babies?

100s of millions.

It may seem like a flippant answer but it actually isn't because this album, as well as selling in huge numbers to the traditional music buying demographic, is also selling to the biggest music biz demographic of the lot - those who don't buy music! Once that happens you are in uncharted territory so who knows how many this will end up selling? Imo it will be a monstrous total harking back to the glory days when people still bought whole albums and the idea of the internet hadn't even occurred to Sir Tim Berners-Lee...

This is too much...
Let the pressed be pressed.

You've changed your tune.
I remember you having many the heated argument when people claimed that her success was down to the album being bought by people who don't buy albums.

What's changed? Why have you done a 180?

the numbers have gone stratospheric recently, and it's over a year since release so it's obviously not now people who pay a great deal of attention to the music scene

^ this.

I'm not a massive Adele fan, shes got a good voice but she's not my thing. But she is very popular.



Hate to be pedantic but Tim Berners-Lee didn't 'invent' the internet, he grabbed a load of technologies that already existed and pulled them all together to create 'web pages' and structure the technologies that make it all work together. The internet already existed, it just wasn't used outside of science really.

Or other people just have a different opinion to you and like the album? There's a thought.

Aaaah, Blue Hawaii, love that film.

This /\.