Adele’s ‘21’ spends 16th week at number one on Billboard, matching ‘Titanic’ soundtrack

Adele’s 21 has done something that no album has done on the Billboard 200 chart in over ten years by spending 16 weeks on the top of the chart. 21 is just the fifth album since 1991 to accomplish the feat and first to do it since the Titanic soundtrack did it in 1998.

Billboard reports that the only other albums to spend 16 or more weeks at number one in that time period are the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, which featured Whitney Houston and spent 20 weeks at the top in 1992 and 1993, Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ The Wind, which had 18 weeks at number one in 1991 and 1992, and Some Gave All by Billy Ray Cyrus, which was on top for 17 weeks in 1992.

This past week, Billboard reports that 21 sold an additional 104,000 copies to top the chart, which should bring it past the 6 million mark, notes Entertainment Weekly. An album has not sold 6 million since Taylor Swift’s Fearless, but that took 96 weeks to reach that plateau, twice as long as 21.

The new album by the Christian group, the David Crowder Band, came in second on the top 10, selling less than half of 21. Their album, Give Us Rest, sold just 51,000 copies. The Black Keys’ El Camino sold just 36,000 copies, but that was good enough for third place. Drake’s Take Care sold another 32,000 copies, while the only other major new release, Snow Patrol’s Fallen Empires, sold just 31,000 copies.

The rest of the top ten included T M:103 Hustlerz Ambition by Young Jeezy, Rihanna’s Talk That Talk, Mylo Xyloto by Coldplay, Nickelback’s Here and Now and the Now 40 compilation.

As Reuters notes, this week showed just how weak the music industry is right now, as, for the first time since Nielsen’s SoundScan began tracking album sales, three records in the top ten sold 20,000 copies or less. Mylo Xyloto sold 20,000, Here and Now sold 19,000 and Now 40 sold just 17,000.