Adele's '21' overtakes Michael Jackson in the all-time biggest selling albums chart-United Kingdom

[mier]

It's nothing new, Michaels record has been broken in the Netherlands a while ago by a Dutch singer (Caro Emerald), but she's not selling anywhere else (maybe some records in Germany) so you can't compare it to Michael's record because that's a worldwide record.

 

[raz2911]

Adele is doing extremely well in the UK, her album is still selling very well a year after its release, selling about 20,000 copies a week in the UK and is still selling extremely well worldwide too, and the reason is with a generation of artists like Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and all the rest of them Adele is a breath of fresh air, she is very talented and yes she may be overrated, but that's due to her lack of competition. When MJ was at his peak so were a lot of the other iconic performers such as Whitney, Prince, Janet, Madonna etc., yet he still shinned through, imagine what it would have been like in today's industry, Thriller was selling over a million copies a week at its peak if I remember correctly, MJ and Thriller have nothing to worry about in Adele and her 21 album it won't be reaching the top 10 best selling albums worldwide and won't come near Thrillers worldwide sales, I'll leave it at that.

 

[Kikuchiyo]

Adele 21's outsells Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bad

According to the latest Official Charts Company sales data, Adele’s 21 has now outsold Michael Jackson’s Thriller and, in doing so, has become the UK’s fifth biggest selling album of all-time.

As of this morning, the London-born singer’s 2011 second album has now sold 4,274,300 copies in the UK, 500 more than Thriller. And with 21 selling an average of 20,000 copies per week over the last four weeks, that lead will significantly increase when this week's final Official Albums Chart sales data is published on Sunday.

“To add to her many landmark records, Adele's achievement in overtaking Thriller in the all-time sales list is truly remarkable,” comments the Official Charts Company’s Managing Director Martin Talbot. “Thriller has long been recognised as one of the most iconic albums of all time - there is now no doubt that 21 can be spoken of in the same breath.”

It’s been an amazing year-and-a-quarter for Adele; in the fifteen months since 21 was released, it has spent 65 weeks on the Official Albums Chart, 23 of those at Number 1, and has outsold Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black to become the biggest selling album of the 21st Century, and has also overtaken the sales of such seminal albums as Michael Jackson’s Bad, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon and Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms in the UK. To put that in perspective, one in six British households owns 21. She has also won six Grammy Awards, and two BRIT Awards.

The UK’s Top 5 biggest selling albums of all-time are now as follows:

01 GREATEST HITS (1981) - QUEEN
02 SGT PEPPER’S LONELY HEART’S CLUB BAND (1967) - THE BEATLES
03 GOLD - GREATEST HITS (1992) - ABBA
04 WHAT’S THE STORY MORNING GLORY (1995) - OASIS
05 21 (2011) – ADELE

http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/adele-is-now-officially-bigger-than-michael-jackson-1374/

Just for the record, OCC (Official Charts Company) figures for both "Thriller" and "BAD" are incomplete because OCC counts only RETAIL sales and both MJ's albums had a massive CLUB SALES during 80s and 90s. Also retail figures for both MJ's albums reported by OCC are also incomplete or wrongly calculated so at the end of day this official OCC list is completely wrong. In the UK "Thriller" (including T25) and "BAD" sold around 4.6 - 4.8 million each and Adele's "21" sold 4.3 million atm.

 

[Kikuchiyo]

By the way, regarding "Thriller" and "BAD" sales, actually both albums are losing sales because of a many MJ's compilations. If a casual buyer wants songs/hits from "Thriller" or "BAD" he/she has many different options where to get them:

"The Essential Michael Jackson" has 7 songs from "Thriller" and 8 songs from "BAD".
"Number Ones" (European edition) has 4 songs from "Thriller" and 5 songs from "BAD".
"King of Pop UK Edition" has 4 songs (or 6 on deluxe edition) from "Thriller" and 4 songs (or 6 on deluxe edition) from "BAD".
"This Is It" soundtrack has 5 songs from "Thriller" and 4 songs from "BAD".
"HIStory" has 5 songs from "Thriller" and 4 songs from "BAD".
"The Ultimate Collection" has 5(+1) songs from "Thriller" and 6 songs from "BAD".

And these albums have sold over 6 million copies in the UK.