At the end of 2010, Katy Perry was atop the singles charts in America and several other national charts, while Susan Boyle capitalized on what worked with her debut album as she secured her reign atop the album charts around the world for a second holiday season. But exactly how the first few months of 2011 would shape out would surely be an interesting ride.
The big story thus far this year has been Adele's enormous success. Having the strongest first week sales of any album this year and being the first album of 2011 to cross the platinum barrier, Adele's 21 has officially confirmed that her transatlantic journey proved to be successful. Add to that the growing momentum of her lead single "Rolling in the Deep," she may be the first British female with a number one album and single since Leona Lewis accomplished that feat in 2008.
Another major story was Britney Spears's return to music. Her lead single "Hold It Against Me" would preform quite well on the charts, debuting at number one on the Hot 100 with over 400,000 copies sold in its first seven days on digital music media. Unfortunately, the song strong entrance on the charts would be short-lived as the song rapidly fell off the charts (largely because of the absence of any promotion). March would prove to be far better as the album debuted at number one, her sixth chart-topper and the youngest artist to do so.
Who can forget the weekend that "Born This Way" toppled the charts. Released on Friday, February 11th, the song took a few hours to storm its way to the top of iTunes. With only three days of digital sales in the U.S., it managed to sell an awe-striking 448,000 copies securing the song's place atop the Hot 100. It would stay atop the Hot 100 for a total of six weeks, the longest for any song thus far.
Wiz Khalifa becomes a very prominent hip hop artist in 2011 after his Pittsburgh-inspired "Black and Yellow" makes it to number one in February. Of course, its success is bittersweet as it reaches its peak the week following the Steeler's defeat in the Super Bowl. Add to that a number two debut for the album with sales (had it not been released the same week as Brit would've likely been #1) of 197,000 copies.
2011 has also become the comeback year for a few artists. Chris Brown, once written off as deceased in the pop world, arrived strong with a number one album and the third strongest sales week thus far. Jennifer Lopez was another artist whose recent musical failures had rendered her postmortem pop royalty. That was until her American Idol position helped propel her from obscurity to the top of the charts with her international hit "On The Floor."
Rihanna became the youngest artist to have ten number one singles at 23 years, two months and one week old, beating out Mariah Carey by almost two years. And if we're mentioning Mariah Carey (a new mother of two might I add), Katy Perry also made news as her fourth single "E.T." became the singer's fourth number one from an album, the most by a female since Mariah herself achieved that in 1990 with her debut album.
British artists (aside from Adele of course) have been quite successful as Tinie Tempah and Jessie J have become mainstream successes, while Hawaii's Bruno Mars's "Grenade" sold 559,000 copies in a week's time, marking the largest sales week for a single in Billboard's calendar year. Nicki Minaj becomes the first femcee to go platinum since Missy Elliot after her number one album Pink Friday sells remarkably well, far beyond what industry experts expected. The Grammys handed out five awards to the biggest winner of the night to Lady Antebellum, while Arcade Fire enjoyed the Album of the Year distinction.
So far this year, album sales have dipped a surprisingly minimal 2%, although it has recorded the lowest sales for a number one album ever in the U.S. as Amos Lee's Mission Bell sold a lowly 40,000 to top the albums chart. So 2011 has been quite impressive for both good and bad reasons, but it will be interesting to see how the remainder works out.
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