[attach id=238847 size="medium"]Adele is scoring one success after the other: she has just won an Oscar for best original song for the theme of the James Bond film Skyfall.[/attach]
Adele is on top of the world after it was revealed that her album 21 was the biggest seller of last year.
The Oscar-winning Someone Like You star shifted 8.3 million copies of the album – three million more than the next bestseller – and went some way to help the music industry record an increase in revenue for the first time since 1999.
US artist Taylor Swift came second with Red (5.2 million), British boy band One Direction took third and fourth positions with Up All Night and Take Me Home respectively (4.5 million and 4.4 million), and US singer Lana Del Rey came fifth with Born to Die (3.4 million).
A report published by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents 1,400 record companies around the world, showed revenues rose by around 0.3 per cent to €12.6 billion in 2012 with digital sales accounting for around a third of the revenue.
Its chief executive Frances Moore said: “It is hard to remember a year for the recording industry that has begun with such a palpable buzz in the air.
“These are hard-won successes for an industry that has innovated, battled and transformed itself over a decade. They show how the music industry has adapted to the internet world, learned how to meet the needs of consumers and monetised the digital marketplace.”
The digital sector, in fact, showed the strongest growth, and for the first time more than compensated for losses in physical revenues.
“At the beginning of the digital revolution it was a common theme to say digital is killing music,” said Edgar Berger, president, international, at Sony Music Entertainment.
At the beginning of the digital revolution it was a common theme to say digital is killing music... the reality is, digital is saving music
“Well the reality is, digital is saving music. I absolutely believe that this marks the start of a global growth story. The industry has every reason to be optimistic about its future.”
Record companies’ digital sales rose about nine per cent last year over 2011 to €4.2 billion and accounted for 34 per cent of income overall.
Download sales increased 12 per cent to 4.3 billion units globally. Digital album sales rose 17 per cent to 207 million.
Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen topped the 2012 digital singles chart with Call Me Maybe which sold 12.5 million copies, followed by Belgian-Australian Gotye with Somebody That I Used to Know and Psy of South Korea with Gangnam Style. Brazil's Michel Telo was sixth with Ai Se Eu Te Pego.