In 2020 and 2019, only one album sold a million copies in the United States, and both were from Swift.
Surprisingly, only three of the best-selling albums of the past 12 years were from an artist other than Swift or Adele. The latter was the best seller in 2016 and 2015 (25, with 1.73 million and 7.44 million sold in those years, respectively) and in 2012 and 2011 (21, with 4.41 and 5.82 million). The only non-Swift or Adele acts with the best-selling album between 2009 and 2020 were Eminem (Recovery, 2010; 3.41 million), Justin Timberlake (The 20/20 Experience, 2013; 2.43 million) and the soundtrack of several artists to The greatest showman (2018, 1.49 million).
Swift has two of the 10 best-selling albums of 2020, as his most recent album, Ever (released on December 11), was the tenth seller of the year, with 283,000 copies sold through December 31. Both Folklore and Ever were released without notice, and both debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The latter gave Swift its eighth leader in the count.
THE 10 SALES ALBUMS OF 2020 IN THE USA
1. Taylor Swift, Folklore (1,276 million)
2. BTS, Soul Map: 7 (674,009)
3. The Weeknd, After hours (480,000)
4. Harry Styles, Thin line (420,000)
5. Billie Eilish, When we all fall asleep, where are we going? (348,000)
6. Lady Gaga, Chromatica (331,000)
7. WRLD juice, Legends never die (301,000)
8. Halsey, Manic (301,000)
9. Eminem, Music to be murdered By (287,000)
10. Taylor Swift, Ever (283,000)
Source: MRC data, for the monitoring period from 3 January 2020, until 31 December 2020.