Adele's '25' becomes largest selling album in over a decade

Adele continues to reign the charts, thanks to the selling success of her comeback album "25."

The British singer's album "25" is on its fourth week at the top of the Billboard 200 chart.

The album has sold nearly 6 million copies since it was released late November. With this, Billboard said "25" is now the largest selling album of any calendar year since 2004.

As for the rest of the Billboard 200 list, Justin Bieber's newest album "Purpose" is on the second spot, followed by the Christmas album by a capella group Pentatonix and One Direction's latest album release before the boyband heads to an indefinite hiatus.

-ANC's Market Edge, December 22, 2015

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

One Direction makes Billboard history, knocks Swift from No. 1

British boy band One Direction became the only group to score four consecutive No. 1 debuts on the US Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, ousting Taylor Swift from her chart-topping reign.

One Direction's latest album, "Four", sold 387,000 copies in its first week, according to figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan.

It follows the band's three previous albums, 2011's "Up All Night," 2012's "Take Me Home" and 2013's "Midnight Memories," all of which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

Sales of "Four" may have been boosted after One Direction won three times at Sunday's televised American Music Awards, including the night's top place for artist of the year. The group also performed new song "Night Changes" at the ceremony.

The band also made history on music streaming platform Spotify by scoring the most first-week streams after "Four" was streamed 11.6 million times in the United States and 30 million times worldwide. The news comes after Swift made a highly publicized move to take her music catalog off the popular service.

Swift's "1989" dropped to No. 2 this week with 214,000 sales. The album became the biggest debut of the year after opening with 1.3 million copies, and held the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart for three consecutive weeks.

"1989" has sold more than 2.2 million copies, the second-biggest selling album of 2014, behind only Disney's "Frozen" soundtrack with 3.6 million copies.

Other new entries in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart this week include Canadian rockers Nickelback at No. 4 with "No Fixed Address" and metal group In This Moment at No. 8 with "Black Widow."

For the week ended Nov. 23, Billboard said a total of 5.5 million albums were sold, up 4 percent from the comparable week in 2013. Year-to-date sales rounded out at 215 million, down 12 percent from the same period last year.

This is the last week Nielsen SoundScan will compile the Billboard 200 album chart from sales figures alone. From next week, the album chart will reflect online streaming and digital track sales to accurately reflect which records were most in demand.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey and Andre Grenon)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Taylor Swift's '1989' tops US Billboard album chart again

Taylor Swift's "1989" topped the US Billboard 200 album chart for the third consecutive week on Wednesday.

The most pop-oriented turn from the onetime country singer sold 312,000 copies last week, according to figures compiled by NielsenSoundscan. "1989" is the second album of the year, behind the soundtrack to Disney's animated film "Frozen," to spend at least three weeks atop the chart.

Swift's album has so far sold 2 million copies. It is the second-best selling album of 2014 after the "Frozen" soundtrack, which has sold 3.25 million copies.

The singer this week also became the first woman to replace herself atop Billboard's Hot 100 song chart as Swift's "Blank Space" bumped her song "Shake It Off" from No. 1, Billboard said.

Swift, 24, bested a slew of new releases on the album chart, including rock group Foo Fighters' "Sonic Highways," which was at No. 2 with 190,000 copies sold.

Rock band Pink Floyd's "Endless River" was third with 170,000 copies, while country singer Garth Brooks' first album in 13 years, "Man Against Machine," was fourth with 130,000 in sales.

At No. 5 was "Cadillactica," the latest album from US rapper Big K.R.I.T., which sold 44,000 copies. Pop-rock singer Nick Jonas, formerly of teen rock band the Jonas Brothers, was No. 6 with 37,000 in sales.

Album sales for the week ending Nov. 16 were 5.4 million, flat compared with the same week last year, according to Billboard. Year-to-date album sales total 209.5 million, a 13 percent decline compared with the same period last year.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com