Adele‘s 21 continues to make history. The diva’s mega-selling second studio album, released in 2011, has now surpassed the 11 million sales mark in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The XL/Columbia Records release is only the 12th album to sell at least that many copies since SoundScan started tracking sales in 1991.
21 sold another 4,000 in the week ending Oct. 5, bringing its cumulative sum to a little more than 11 million in its 189th week of release. (It has sold 157,000 in 2014 alone.) The album has yet to exit the Billboard 200, where it has spent all but 11 of its chart weeks in the top 100. This issue, it climbs 113-95. It’s the first to reach 11 million since March 2012, when Bob Marley & The Wailers‘ Legend achieved the feat. (21 and Legend are two of only 22 sets to sail past the much celebrated 10 million mark, too.)
With album sales continually shrinking (down 14 percent this year) the chances of the industry seeing another 10 or 11 million seller seem increasingly slim. Then again, back before Adele’s 21 was released, there were likely few who would have guessed there would be another album to sell that well.
All of this leads to the question: Will anything sell 1 million copies in 2014 aside from the Frozen soundtrack? It’s the only album that has exceeded 1 million (3.1 million this year; 3.5 million to date). A year ago at this point, five albums had passed 1 million in sales.
An informal survey of label sources suggests that there could be a few million-sellers left to be released this year: Taylor Swift‘s 1989 topped the list for everyone, as it seems the only probable lock to sell a million by Dec. 31. Other titles in the mix: Garth Brooks‘ Man Against Machine, AC/DC‘s Rock or Bust, One Direction‘s Four and Kendrick Lamar‘s forthcoming new studio effort. (What about Adele’s own next album? Alas, her representative says, “Nothing is scheduled.”) In addition, there are still holdover titles from Lorde (Pure Heroine), Sam Smith (In the Lonely Hour) and Beyoncé (Beyoncé) that all could creep past the million mark before the year is out.