NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 12: Taylor Swift performs onstage during iHeartRadio Jingle Ball 2014, … [+]
Adele rules the Billboard charts this week as only she can these days, with her latest full-length 30 debuting atop the Billboard 200 with the largest start of 2021 (by more than 200,000 units). The highly-anticipated project performed well across all metrics, but sales helped propel it all the way to the summit, as the title was purchased by 692,000 fans in the U.S. alone, a sum which is unheard of these days.
30 was a massive success in every format possible, with Adele lovers rushing to buy it digitally, on CD, and especially on vinyl. While the singer’s new effort may have racked up the largest sales figure in a long, long time, it didn’t quite overtake a recently-set record, as it seems nobody, not even Adele, can beat Taylor Swift.
The new Billboard 200 champion starts off with 108,000 vinyl albums sold, a number which would have been unbearable just a few years ago. That sum is one that just the biggest and most popular musicians in the world can even come close to approaching, and it’s only been topped by Swift…and just last week.
When Swift’s latest album Red (Taylor’s Version) debuted atop the Billboard 200 last frame, it did so with 114,000 copies sold on vinyl. In doing so, the singer-songwriter broke her own record for the largest sales frame in the history of the format (at least since MRC Data began tracking it electronically in 1991). Earlier in 2021, the “All Too Well” performer reset the all-time best showing when Evermore sold 102,000 copies on vinyl in a single tracking period.
It was thought, until now, that Adele was the single biggest artist in the music industry, at least when it came to sale, and that nobody could possibly beat her when she had a new album to share. That turned out to be true in terms of total purchases, but when breaking it down by format, it’s clear that Swift is truly the vinyl queen in America. If Adele can’t beat her performance, nobody stands a chance at the moment, even though recent releases by Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and even Paul McCartney have also scored massive totals.
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