NEAR TRUTHS: REALIGNMENT AND RECOGNITION
Underscoring the year's biggest stories (11/19a)
NEAR TRUTHS: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
Nervous time in the music biz and beyond. (11/16a)
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NOW WHAT?
We have no fucking idea.
COUNTRY'S NEWEST DISRUPTOR
Three chords and some truth you may not be ready for.
AI IS ALREADY EATING YOUR LUNCH
The kids can tell the difference... for now.
WHO'S BUYING THE DRINKS?
That's what we'd like to know.
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Adele’s 30 (Columbia) has scored the biggest opening week of 2021 and registered the most first-week sales for an album in four years on the U.K. Official Albums chart. Her domination of the charts continues at singles where she has #1 (“Easy On Me”), #2 (“Oh My God”) and #4 (“I Drink Wine”).
30—Adele’s fourth #1 album—registered 261k sales, topping ABBA’s Voyage, which sold 204k. It’s the biggest first-week for an album since Ed Sheeran’s Divide (Atlantic) in 2017. The last time a female artist had bigger numbers—no surprise here—it was Adele’s 25 in 2015.
More than two-thirds of the sales were physical and 30 is both the week’s biggest seller on vinyl—16,700 copies—and the most-streamed album of the week—55.7m plays for its 12 tracks.
Adele is the first female to hit #1 in the U.K. with her first four albums and the previous three titles all return to the Top 40: 25 is #15; 21 is #18 and her debut, 19, lands at #31.
On singles, “Easy On Me” hits a personal best of six weeks at #1 with more than 101k chart sales and 11.5m streams.
There were other new collections that debited in the Top 10 this week.
Oasis’ Knebworth 1996 (Big Brother) is #4, their first U.K. Top 10 album in 11 years; Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ second collaboration, Raise The Roof (East West/Rhino) lands at #5; D-Block Europe’s mixtape Home Alone 2 (Virgin) breaks in at #6; Elbow’s Flying Dream 1 (Polydor) soars to #7; and James Blunt’s greatest hits collection The Stars Beneath My Feet (2004-2021) debuts at #9. Bruce Springsteen’s live album The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts (Columbia) is #11.
At singles, Sheeran has the two Top 5 slots not filled by Adele: “Shivers” at #3 and “Bad Habits” at #5. D-Block Europe f/Central Cee’s “Overseas” is new in the Top 10, opening at #8.