Adele’s 30 has captured the biggest week of 2021 for any album in the U.S., surpassing the debut of Drake’s Certified Lover Boy.
According to initial reports to MRC Data, 30 has earned more than 660,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. from its Nov. 19 release through Nov. 22, with over 560,000 of that sum in traditional album sales.
In terms of weekly units earned, 30 has now beaten the debut week of Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, which launched with 613,000 units earned in the week ending Sept. 9.
Equivalent album units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
It was earlier reported that 30 is also 2021’s top-selling album (surpassing the sales of any album over the past 11 months combined) and has the year’s largest week for any album in terms of traditional album sales, beating the debut of Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version), which sold 369,000 copies in the week ending Nov. 18.
The current tracking week ends at the close of business on Nov. 25. Billboard is scheduled to announce the album’s official final first-week numbers on Sunday, Nov. 28, after MRC Data has completed processing the week’s data.
If 30 debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart dated Dec. 4 (which reflects the tracking week ending Nov. 25), it will mark Adele’s third No. 1. She previously topped the list with her last two studio albums: 25 (10 weeks in 2015-16) and 21 (24 weeks in 2011-12).
