Christmas hasn't boosted album sales in years, outside of Susan Boyles or Christmas albums. Besides this wasn't "Christmas week" for albums anyway. The 24th saved this week from being absolutely disastrous, small declines. Next week **** hits the fan, though I think RED might still manage six figures.
Red's" seventh week at No. 1 gives Swift a total of 24 weeks atop the Billboard 200 through her career -- tying her with Adele as the woman with most weeks at No. 1 since SoundScan began powering the Billboard 200 in May, 1991. Swift's "Fearless" album spent 11 weeks at No. 1, while 2010's "Speak Now" logged six weeks atop the list. (All 24 of Adele's weeks at No. 1 came from one album: "21.")
Next week, Taylor will take the record of "Female with the most weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 in the SoundScan era."
One Direction is the first act to sell 1 million or more copies of two different albums in a calendar year since 2009, when Michael Jackson (who died that year) achieved the feat with four albums and Miley Cyrus (who was then at the peak of her career) achieved it with two albums.
Drake’s Take Care is the year’s top-selling rap album with sales of 698K. The album sold an additional 1,247,000 copies in 2011. (I’m classifying Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, which sold 785K during the year, as pop.) Take Care is a Grammy finalist for Best Rap Album. It spawned two top 10 hits, “Make Me Proud” (featuring Minaj) and “Take Care” (featuring Rihanna).
(Glee ran out of gas this year. No Glee albums rank among the top 200 for the year. The Glee phenomenon peaked two years ago when Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album was the year’s #16 best-seller.)
