Adele’s 25 has been confirmed as the biggest-selling album in the UK for the second year running. The record-breaking album shifted 753,194 copies in 2016 according to the Official Charts Company – much fewer than the 2,495,899 it moved in 2015 – but still enough to comfortably lead the list in a year in which no album sold a million. Indeed, the only time in the last 25 years in which the year's No.1 artist album has sold fewer copies was in 2013, when One Direction's Midnight Memories topped the list on sales of 684,754 copies.   

25 is, however, only the third album in history to top the best-sellers list two years in a row, emulating Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970 and 1971) and Simply Red's Stars (1991 and 1992).

The actual best-selling album of the year was the compilation Now That's What I Call Music! 95, which has sold 867,959.

Other 2015 releases also fared well on the chart, with Music Week Artist Of The Year winners Coldplay’s A Head Full Of Dreams at No.2 with sales of just over 512,334. The top-selling 2016 release came in at No.3, Michael Ball and Alfie Boe’s surprise hit, Together. It sold 511,699 copies, just 635 behind Coldplay’s tally for the year.

On the singles best-sellers, it’s no surprise to see Drake’s 15-week No.1 One Dance top the charts with 1.95 million combined sales/streams – although Lukas Graham’s 7 Years – No.2 overall with 1.49m – was actually the most downloaded track of the year.

The full Top 10s are below. Stay tuned to Music Week for more in-depth analysis of the year’s big-sellers.

Official Singles Chart 2016

Official Artist Albums Chart 2016

For the full chart, visit OfficialCharts.com

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