Adele smashes Madonna's U.K. Chart Record in 10th Week at No. 1

Adele écrase le record de Madonna du classement du Royaume-Uni en étant N° 1 pour la 10ème Semaine.

by Paul Sexton, London | April 04, 2011 8:20 EDT

With XL Recordings' Adele continuing to rewrite the U.K. album sales record book, Jennifer Lopez scored her third No. 1 single in the territory yesterday (Sunday) with "On The Floor" (Def Jam/Universal), featuring Pitbull.
Adele's current release "21" achieved easily its biggest weekly sales total, a spectacular 257,000, to start a tenth week atop the album countdown, as its predecessor "19" continued at No. 2. "21" thus overtakes Madonna's "The Immaculate Collection" for most consecutive weeks at No. 1 ever by a female artist on the U.K. chart; her next target, next weekend, will be to match the aggregate female record of  11 non-consecutive weeks, jointly held by Shania Twain's "Come On  Over" in 1999 and Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" (1996).
The current Adele album has now ruled the U.K. chart for longer than any individual artist album since Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms," which led the way for ten straight weeks in January-March 1986. That album had spent four previous weeks at No. 1, in two runs of two  weeks, prior to that sequence.
"21" is also the first album in U.K. chart history to sell in excess  of 100,000 units for each of its first ten weeks on release. Its massive haul last week was attributable in part to the increased overall sales market in the lead-up to Mother's Day (Sunday), which also helped "19" towards another 73,000 sales, according to the Official Charts Company. "21" now has total U.K. sales to Saturday of 1,754,000, and "19" has reached 1,196,000.
The "21" smash "Someone Like You" did however lose the singles crown after five aggregate weeks to Lopez, who previously topped the U.K. survey with "Love Don't Cost A Thing" in 2001 and "Get Right." "On The Floor" sold a sturdy 133,000 units last week.
"Someone Like You" fell to No. 2 as "Party Rock Anthem" (Interscope/Universal) by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett and Goonrock soared 22-3. British R&B artist Katy B debuted at No. 8 with "Broken Record" (Rinse Recordings/Columbia/Sony Music Entertainment).
Also on the album chart, Ronan Keating and Burt Bacharach's collaboration "When Ronan Met Burt" (Polydor/Universal) moved up 5-3, vocal harmony group the Overtones' "Good Ol' Fashioned Love" (Warner  Music Entertainment) 6-4 and Rihanna's "Loud" (Def Jam/Universal) 7-5.
Then came three new entries, for "X Factor" season seven finalist Mary Byrne's "Mine & Yours" (Sony Music Entertainment) at No. 6, Radiohead's "The King of Limbs" (Ticker Tape/XL Recordings) at No. 7 and Britney Spears' "Femme Fatale" (Jive/Sony Music Entertainment) at No. 8. Eva Cassidy's latest posthumous collection "Simply Eva" (Blix Street) climbed 19-10. On the compilation chart, "Massive R&B - Spring  2011" (Rhino/UMTV) moved into a third week at No. 1.

Source: Billboard.

Adele
Photo: Andrew Yee.