Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience has helped to significantly close the gap between year-to-date 2011 and 2012 US album sales after it outsold its nearest rival by more than 20 copies to one.

A week ago the US albums market for the year was 7.2% lower than where it was at the same stage a year ago with 61.4 million units sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan. However, thanks to The 20/20 Experience selling 968,000 copies last week, that deficit has ...