Adele tops US bestselling album list for second year

British star Adele has achieved the colossal feat of notching up the bestselling release in the US for a second consecutive year — with the same album, 21.

It is the first time an album has topped sales for two years running for almost 30 years.

Four of the top six biggest-selling albums of 2012 were by UK artists.

Boyband One Direction landed two of the top sellers with Up All Night in third place and Take Me Home in fifth. Together they sold 2.9m copies. Mumford & Sons’s second album, Babel, was placed sixth with 1.4m sales.

Adele added on 4.4m sales of 21 last year in the US, and on top of 5.8m the previous year.

The last album to be a bestseller in successive years was Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which triumphed in 1983 and 1984.

Second place for 2012 sales went to US singer Taylor Swift&

The top-selling single of the year was Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know, which was downloaded a record 6.8m times.