The Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Albums Of 2012 revealed!

British artists dominate the Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Albums Of 2012, according to the latest Official Charts Company sales data released by The BPI.

Click here to see the Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Singles Of 2012.

Lead by Emeli Sande, Adele and Ed Sheeran, UK artists make up over half of 2012’s biggest selling albums. According to the latest Official Charts Company sales data released by The BPI, home-grown acts account for 60% of the Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Albums of the last twelve months.

Emeli Sande’s debut album, Our Version Of Events (Number 1), tops the chart with sales of 1.39 million copies; nearly double the amount achieved by the next biggest selling album released in 2012 - Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die (Number 4, with sales of 719,000 copies). Our Version Of Events, which was released in February of last year, has spent an impressive 46 weeks in the Official Albums Chart Top 10, including seven non-consecutive weeks at Number 1. The Scottish singer/songwriter also won a BRIT Award last year, and performed at both the opening and closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Adele’s 2011 second album, 21 (Number 2), continued to sell strongly with sales of 786,000 copies during 2012. With its lifetime sales tally now at 4.6 million, 21 has sold more copies than classic albums by Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, and, most recently Oasis, to become the UK’s fourth biggest selling album of all-time.

Ed Sheeran’s +, which was also released in 2011, performed well during its second calendar year of release, too, with sales of 784,000 copies. + climbs six places from Number 9 in 2011’s year end chart, to Number 3 in  2012’s year end chart. One Direction’s latest album, Take Me Home (Number 5), completes the Top 5 with sales of over 616,000 copies.

One Direction are one of four acts to have more than one album in the Top 40. The Anglo/Irish boyband's 2011 debut, Up All Night (372,000 copies) is at Number 15, while their fellow X Factor star Olly Murs’ latest album, Right Place, Right Time (570,000 copies), is at Number 7, and his 2011 second album, In Case You Didn’t Know (332,000), is at Number 20. Rihanna’s Unapologetic (475,000 copies) and Talk That Talk (333,000) are at Number 10 and Number 19, respectively, and Bruno Mars is at Number 24 with Unorthodox Jukebox (which has sold 307,000 copies in the UK since its release on December 9), and Number 26 with his debut album Doo-Wops And Hooligans (291,000 copies).

In terms of male solo artist / female solo artist / group splits, the Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Albums Of 2012 is nearly evenly divided into thirds. The groups (lead by One Direction) account for 37.5% of the Top 40 albums sold last year, while male solo artists (lead by Ed Sheeran) stands at 32.5%, and female solo artists (lead by Emeli Sande) accounts for 30%.

The full Official Top 40 Biggest Selling Albums Of 2012 is as follows:

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