It’s starting to become a tradition: As Christmas approached, people bought an Adele album.
In its fifth week out — a period ending December 23 — the singer’s latest LP, “30,” saw its sales activity jump 16 percent from the week before, a boost driven by traditional sales, not streams.
#1 on the Billboard 200, “30” moved 180,500 copies as a full-length album for a total of 212,000 equivalent album units, including streams (41 million, down 14 percent) and individual song downloads, according to MRC Data, The tracking arm of Billboard.
An album in its fifth week since Adele’s previous LP, “25,” which was also released in the run-up to the holiday season, hasn’t had such big sales in its fifth week in 2015. (Some things have changed, though: The singer’s fifth week sales for “25” were still over a million last time.)
“30” will also be the fourth album to be released this year to spend at least five weeks at #1, following releases from Morgan Wallen (top 10 weeks), Olivia Rodrigo (five) and Drake (five), according to Billboard.
Also taking advantage of the holiday season, Michael Bublé’s “Christmas,” which came out ten years ago, jumps to number 2 on the album chart this week with 77,000 units. On the Hot 100, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” originally released in 1994, sits at #1 for the second week in a row and seventh overall since it finally reached number one in 2019.
Taylor Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” is steady at number 3, totaling 76,000 units, while “Live Life Fast,” the new album from Los Angeles rapper Roddy Ricch, debuts at number 4 with 62,000, including 77 million streams. . Ricch’s previous album, “Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial”, opened at #1 in 2019 and topped the charts for a total of four weeks. Rodrigo’s “Sour” rounds out the Top 5.
