Here’s who were the Queens and Kings for 2015 in music!
To get straight to the point, Adele was crowned the undisputed champion of 2015, with her 25 album earning over 8 million equivalent album units in its short span.
While the project is approaching diamond certified, the next artist closest to the London singer’s milestone, was Taylor Swift, whose 1989 album had 3.1 million sales.
In the Urban-Pop world, Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late was a few units shy of 2 million, with Fetty Wap’s self-titled debut album easily trampling a million in the states.
Throughout the year, Nielsen reported that albums were up 15 percent from 2014, which the music industry saw nearly 550 million equivalent albums consumed over the period.
Pure album sales fell 6 percent, while track equivalent albums dropped by 13 percent – both due to the rise of on-demand and off-line streaming on music services. Throughout the entire year, only two albums went double platinum, four less than the previous year.
Take a look at the full list top selling albums of 2015 below, via Billboard.
01. Adele, 25 | 8,008,000
02. Taylor Swift, 1989 | 3,105,000
03. Justin Bieber, Purpose | 2,225,000
04. Ed Sheeran, X | 2,206,000
05. The Weeknd, Beauty Behind the Madness | 2,045,000
06. Drake, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late | 1,919,000
07. Meghan Trainor, Title | 1,795,000
08. Sam Smith, In the Lonely Hour | 1,741,000
09. Sam Hunt, Montevallo | 1,378,000
10. Fetty Wap, Fetty Wap | 1,295,000
For the tracking period Dec. 29, 2014 through Dec. 31, 2015