Adele tops charts for 15th time

ArtsBeat reports: Adele’s 21 is officially the fastest-selling record in seven years, so it’s not a surprise that this week the album tops Billboard’s chart for the 15th time. What is notable — and a relief for the music industry — is that it continues to rack up significant sales at a time of year that has been embarrassingly slow in recent years.

Adele’s album sold 124,000 copies last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That is a healthy number in any week. But it’s miraculous given the abysmal sales last January and February, when the industry’s record for the lowest sales for a No. 1 album was broken again and again buy a string of releases, culminating with just over 40,000 sales for Amos Lee’s Mission Bell.

The rest of the chart this week, however, looks a lot more like the industry’s typical post-holiday doldrums. Drake’s Take Care reached No. 2 with 42,000 sales, just a few hundred more than the Black Keys’ El Camino, which rises four spots this week to No. 3. Young Jeezy’s TM: 103 Hustlerz Ambition is No. 4 with 36,000 sales, and Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto is No. 5 with 28,000.

On Billboard’s digital songs chart, a new title is at No. 1 after months of the top spot being held almost every week by either LMFAO, Adele, Rihanna or Maroon 5.

This week Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up” opened at No. 1 with 229,000 downloads. Right behind that song were the usual suspects: LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” fell one spot to No. 2 with 212,000 downloads; Adele is No. 3 with her latest single, “Set Fire to the Rain,” which had 203,000 downloads; and Rihanna’s “We Found Love” is in fourth place with 185,000.