Adele overtakes Dire Straits to become UK's 6th biggest selling album

Adele’s 21 has taken yet another step towards immortality, by becoming the sixth biggest selling album of all time in the UK - according to the very latest Official Charts Company sales data.

The London-born singer started the week by overtaking the then seventh biggest seller, Pink Floyd’s 1973 epic The Dark Side Of The Moon. At this stage, she was just 12,000 copies behind British rockers Dire Straits’ 1985 smash Brothers In Arms which was at 6.

The latest data delivered this morning, which takes into account over the counter and digital sales up to just before midnight last night (Thursday, March 21) puts 21 nearly 4,000 copies ahead of Brothers In Arms. The news comes just three weeks after the London-born singer’s 2011 second album overtook sales of Michael Jackson’s Bad in the UK.

21 has now sold over 4.15 million copies since its release in January of last year; to put this in perspective, one in six British households now owns the album.

The Top 10 biggest selling albums of all-time in the UK are now as follows.

UPDATED 26/03/2012 @ 16:30

Please note the final, updated figures for sales week ending Saturday, March 24, 2012.

01 GREATEST HITS - QUEEN - 5,865,000 (1981)
02 SGT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND - THE BEATLES - 5,046,000 (1967)
03 GOLD: GREATEST HITS - ABBA - 4,994,000 (1992)
04 WHAT'S THE STORY MORNING GLORY - OASIS 4,521,000 (1995)
05 THRILLER - MICHAEL JACKSON - 4,273,000 (1982)
06 21 ADELE - 4,165,000 (2011)
07 BROTHERS IN ARMS - DIRE STRAITS - 4,155,000 (1985)
08 THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON - PINK FLOYD - 4,117,000 (1973)
09 BAD - MICHAEL JACKSON - 3,961,000 (1987)
10 GREATEST HITS II - QUEEN - 3,888,000 (1991)

© The Official Charts Company 2012. All rights reserved.

Adele - Rolling In The Deep on MUZU.TV.