The Top 40 Best-Selling Albums of 2020!

[Blackout2006]

Hey guys!

Last time, I had opened a thread on the 40 most popular songs of last year and now MediaTraffic has finally released the list for best-selling albums of 2020 which is a top 40 list including artist like Weeknd, Harry, Dua and etc on the list. Please note that these are equivalent sales (not pure copies) since MediaTraffic has been counting streaming services since 2016 or 2017.

ALBUMS COUNTDOWN 2020 compiled and provided by MediaTraffic

 

1.	BTS (Bangtan Boys) - Map Of The Soul: 7 Big Hit Entertainment - 6.519.000 equivalent sales
2.	BTS (Bangtan Boys) - BE Big Hit Entertainment - 3.362.000 equivalent sales
3.	Harry Styles - Fine Line Erskine / Columbia - 3.265.000 equivalent sales
4.	Pop Smoke - Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon Victor Victor / Republic - 3.260.000 equivalent sales
5.	Taylor Swift - Folklore Republic - 3.188.000 equivalent sales
6.	The Weeknd - After Hours XO Recordings / Republic - 3.174.000 equivalent sales
7.	Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Darkroom / Interscope - 3.146.000 equivalent sales
8.	Post Malone - Hollywood's Bleeding Republic - 3.004.000 equivalent sales
9.	Juice WRLD - Legends Never Die Grade A Productions / Interscope - 2.750.000 equivalent sales
10.	Lil Baby - My Turn Capitol / Motown - 2.571.000 equivalent sales
11.	Lewis Capaldi - Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent Vertigo / Virgin - 2.299.000 equivalent sales
12.	Roddy Ricch - Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial Atlantic - 2.235.000 equivalent sales
13.	Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake Generation Now / Atlantic - 2.137.000 equivalent sales
14.	Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia Warner - 2.124.000 equivalent sales
15.	Eminem - Music To Be ******** By Aftermath / Shady / Interscope - 2.064.000 equivalent sales
16.	Kenshi Yonezu - Stray Sheep Sony Music Japan - 2.013.000 equivalent sales
17.	Soundtrack - Frozen II Walt Disney - 1.723.000 equivalent sales
18.	DaBaby - Blame It On Baby South Coast / Interscope - 1.687.000 equivalent sales
19.	Luke Combs - What You See Is What You Get Columbia Nashville - 1.683.000 equivalent sales
20.	Justin Bieber - Changes Def Jam - 1.648.000 equivalent sales
21.	Lady GaGa - Chromatica Interscope - 1.648.000 equivalent sales
22.	Original Broadway Cast - Hamilton: An American Musical Hamilton Uptown / Atlantic - 1.566.000 equivalent sales
23.	Bad Bunny - YHLQMDLG Rimas - 1.555.000 equivalent sales
24.	Juice WRLD - Goodbye & Good Riddance Grade A Productions / Interscope - 1.491.000 equivalent sales
25.	Queen - Greatest Hits Hollywood / Parlophone - 1.451.000 equivalent sales
26.	Seventeen - Heng:garae Pledis Entertainment - 1.450.000 equivalent sales
27.	Blackpink - The Album YG Entertainment / Interscope - 1.415.000 equivalent sales
28.	Travis Scott - Astroworld Cactus Jack / Grand Hustle / Epic - 1.410.000 equivalent sales
29.	Drake - Dark Lane Demo Tapes OVO Sound / Republic - 1.408.000 equivalent sales
30	Halsey - Manic Capitol - 1.375.000 equivalent sales
31.	Taylor Swift - Lover Republic - 1.369.000 equivalent sales
32.	Ed Sheeran - No.6 Collaborations Project Asylum / Atlantic - 1.345.000 equivalent sales
33.	Post Malone - Beerbongs & Bentleys Republic - 1.344.000 equivalent sales
34.	Ed Sheeran - Divide Asylum / Atlantic - 1.301.000 equivalent sales
35.	Billie Eilish - Don't Smile At Me Darkroom / Interscope - 1.240.000 equivalent sales
36.	Elton John - Diamonds Rocket / Virgin EMI - 1.211.000 equivalent sales
37.	Seventeen - Semicolon Dreamus / Pledis - 1.199.000 equivalent sales
38.	NCT 127 - NCT#127: Neo Zone (The Final Round) Sony Music Entertainment - 1.182.000 euqivalent sales
39.	NCT - Resonance Part 1 Capitol / Dreamus / Sony Music - 1.181.000 equivalent sales
40.	Luke Combs - This One's For You Columbia Nashville - 1.159.000 equivalent sales

 

As we can see here, the top spot has been taken over by the worlds biggest K-pop group, BTS with their 8th album "Map Of The Soul: 7" which became the only album from not only this year but since 2018 to shift over 5 million equivalent units globally. However, they weren't done yet!...they released another album a few weeks ago which featured the mega-smash hit "Dynamite" which sold 3 million copies in its first week alone, setting it at the #2 position. Congratulations @Invitation !
At #3 arrives Harry Style's sophomore effort "Fine Line" which is officially the best-selling western album of 2020..shifting over 3.265 million copies, outdoing his debut album in its first year of release, which was the 21st best-selling album of 2017 for selling over a million units. He is also the first British artist since Adele to have the highest-selling western album and the album now has accumulated 3.3 billion streams making it also the 4th most streamed album of 2020.

Taylor Swift leads the female game with highest-selling female album of this year with her folk-pop crossover album "Folklore" which not only debuted at #1 in the United World Charts for selling 1 million units, but became the best-selling album in the US. The album opened up with one of the biggest first-day streams in Spotify and to this day has sold over 3.188.000 equivalents.

At #6 is After Hours by Weeknd which included 2020's biggest hit "Blinding Lights". Not only did the album welcome massive acclaim in its first week alone with a monumental 83% score, it became a massive commercial success and proved to live up to the success of his last album which was Starboy. It is the third best-selling male album of the last year gathering  3,174,000 equivalents worldwide.

Billie Eilish well-known weapon is longevity and she simply proves it furthermore with this achievement. Her debut studio album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" even though released last year, managed to still crack into the top 10 making it the 7th best-selling album of 2020 for shifting over 3,146,000. What really is a mind-boggler is that it is just a few thousands of units away from almost outselling "After Hours" which was a newly-released album with massive promotion and hit song. Billie's feature does not stop here though, with her 2017 EP "Dont Smile At Me" being the 35th highest-selling record of 2020!

At #14 is the disco queen Dua Lipa AKA @CrazyButItFeelsAllright whom had the 14th highest-selling/3rd highest-selling female album of last year selling over 2.1+ million units globally with the most critically acclaimed female pop album of 2020, "Future Nostalgia". It even out-did her debut album which sold just 1.3 millions in its first year of release, breaking not only the sophomore-album curse but even the best new artist grammys curse! She has bagged so far 4 hits with her sophomore era including her latest top 10-hit single "Levitating". It is also the most streamed female album of 2020 and has even outsold Eminem whose latest album appears right after Future Nostalgia for selling over 2.0 million units.

Even though not as successful as the first soundtrack of the All-time blockbuster disney movie "Frozen", the soundtrack for the second movie is the 16th best-selling album of 2020 for shifting nearly 1,725,000 units which is still amazing for a soundtrack of a movie released just last year of November. Long live Arendelle!

At #20 & #21 are the new studio albums from artist whom had a seemingly long "studio-album" hiatus after the release of Purpose and Joanne...Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. Both of their new albums "Changes" and "Chromatica" sold 1.648.000 equivalents WW and it was bad and good for one another. This has become a new low for Justin as it has become his first album not to crack to the top 15 of highest selling albums of a year, and was his first ever album to have sold below 2 million copies. Whereas for Lady Gaga, this has marked the true comeback nobody ever saw coming...returning back to her modernized-disco and dance-pop roots that made her famous but with a 90s House-pop twist to the magic. It has been her first album since 2013 to have sold over 1.5 million copies in their first year of release, after Joanne had sold an underwhelming 850k+ by 2016.

Blackpink has the higest-selling female k-pop album of the year with the ironically-titled album "The Album" which sold 1,4+ million equivalents becoming their highest selling album since their last album released in 2019. Congrats to the biggest female group in the world!

Dark Lane Demo Tapes has become a underperformance for Drake as it sold quite poorly for a rap-giant like him and albums like Positions by Ariana Grande didnt make the top 40.

What do you think of the list? Shocked? Happy? Lemme know

Edited January 10, 2021 by CrazyButItFeelsAllright

[ColdAsFire88]

 

[RadicalOptimism]

And no Boresitions to be found 

[MrPieceOfMe]

I don't even know half of the artists here 

[Blackout2006]

9 minutes ago, CrazyButItFeelsAllright said:

And no Boresitions to be found 

Serves her right for thinking she could give us sweetener and TUN demos and make it an "album"

[Blackout2006]

Just now, Blackout2006 said:

Serves her right for thinking she could give us sweetener and TUN demos and make it an "album"

 

10 minutes ago, CrazyButItFeelsAllright said:

And no Boresitions to be found 

Thoughts @BUWYGF?

[Blackout2006]

5 minutes ago, MrPieceOfMe said:

I don't even know half of the artists here 

Let me say this one more time *clears throat*

"INTERNATIONAL"

[Blackout2006]

20 minutes ago, ColdAsFire88 said:

 

Wut?

[Slayer]

13 minutes ago, CrazyButItFeelsAllright said:

And no Boresitions to be found 

[RadicalOptimism]

Just now, Slayer said:

I am shocked it didn’t crack top 40 considering how it’s been shoved down my throat here and on Instagram 

[redacted statement]

7 of the entries are from artists based in Korea. I guess that's the power of K-Pop fans - one of the few markets left where CDs are still held in high regard.  Also, BTS' newest album costs like 40 to 50 dollars, so this is even more impressive. 

[Blackout2006]

3 minutes ago, Slayer said:

Confetti didn't make the list

I wish it was atleast in the 20, as a cute "I love you" for the little mixers to Jesy

[Blackout2006]

3 minutes ago, iAlwaysSingLive said:

The power of K-Pop fans - one of the few markets left where CDs are still held in high regard.  Also, BTS' newest album costs like 40 to 50 dollars, so this is even more impressive. 

Its amazing! i never even expected the album to make the cut

[Blackout2006]

5 minutes ago, CrazyButItFeelsAllright said:

I am shocked it didn’t crack top 40 considering how it’s been shoved down my throat here and on Instagram 

Tea, i thought atleast she would crack top 40 but she probably did not even make top 50

[Towelney]

Billie slaying as usual 

Stream Lovely for a pair of beats headphones 

[Slayer]

2 minutes ago, Blackout2006 said:

Confetti didn't make the list

I wish it was atleast in the 20, as a cute "I love you" for the little mixers to Jesy

It is the fourth biggest female album of 2020 and is about to surpass Chromatica here 

At least in the UK they are doing great  Hopefully LM3 start doing promo internationally again or their awful label actually finally promote them in the US! 

Do you like Confetti?! this praise from you is so new

[Blackout2006]

1 minute ago, Slayer said:

It is the fourth biggest female album of 2020 and is about to surpass Chromatica here 

Really? But how would it surpass Chromatica if the #40 lowest selling was 1,159 million units, wouldnt Confetti need 500k more units in order to surpass Chromatica then?

And wouldnt it make it the 5th highest selling since blackpinks new album outsold

Regardless, this is amazing news! 5th highest selling album for a girl group with a trash label and decent promotion is a huge achievement and i am happy to see it

4 minutes ago, Slayer said:

At least in the UK they are doing great  Hopefully LM3 start doing promo internationally again or their awful label actually finally promote them in the US! 

Ah yes, the UK really are die-hard mixers

4 minutes ago, Slayer said:

Do you like Confetti?! this praise from you is so new

I havent listened to the record yet, but all the singles released from this era were great! i also was rooting for them since they all have gone through alot and it would be nice to see hard-working people get the success they deserve

[Blackout2006]

6 minutes ago, Towelney said:

Billie slaying as usual 

Stream Lovely for a pair of beats headphones 

And stream I Love You for a pair bose limited-edition headphones

[Slayer]

4 minutes ago, Blackout2006 said:

Really? But how would it surpass Chromatica if the #40 lowest selling was 1,159 million units, wouldnt Confetti need 500k more units in order to surpass Chromatica then?

And wouldnt it make it the 5th highest selling since blackpinks new album outsold

Regardless, this is amazing news! 5th highest selling album for a girl group with a trash label and decent promotion is a huge achievement and i am happy to see it

Ah yes, the UK really are die-hard mixers

I havent listened to the record yet, but all the singles released from this era were great! i also was rooting for them since they all have gone through alot and it would be nice to see hard-working people get the success they deserve

Nooo I mean surpassing Chromatica UK sales!  They definitely wouldn't pass internationally!

You need to listen and stan  Yes they do deserve, stream Little Mix for clear skin!

[Blackout2006]

1 minute ago, Slayer said:

Nooo I mean surpassing Chromatica UK sales!  They definitely wouldn't pass internationally!

Oh okay lol! i was so confused

1 minute ago, Slayer said:

You need to listen and stan  

Omg my listening schedule is so packed up, @Hooked-On-Knee just today told me to listen to george michaels discography, i have to listen to 1999 by Prince, and then check out some of David Bowies music  but i will for sure check out their new album as a honor to Jesy  

2 minutes ago, Slayer said:

Yes they do deserve, stream Little Mix for clear skin!

And holiday for free holidays