Justin Timberlake’s ‘The 20/20 Experience’ Was 2013’s Best Selling Album

The receipts are in, and Justin Timberlake‘s award-winning comeback vehicle The 20/20 Experience emerged as the best selling album of 2013. A victory, for sure, but one that signifies the rapidly decline of music sales in general.

20/20 sold 2.43 million copies last year, a sum that pales when compared to the 5.82 million Adele‘s 21 sold in 2011 and 4.41 million the same LP moved in 2012 — it being the top seller in both of those years. Billboard notes that 2.43 million is the lowest amount for a year-end best seller since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.

The 20/20 Experience was the only album to cross the 2 million mark in 2013, and overall album sales in the States fell by 8% last year. The good news? While CD sales were down 14% and digital album sales were down (for the first time ever) by 1%, vinyl album sales were up for the sixth year in a row, this time by a whopping 33% (total sales: 6.1 million in 2013).

Meanwhile, let’s all give props to Beyonce, whose self-titled album managed to rack up a total of 1.3 million copies sold in just three weeks and comes in on the year-end roundup at #8.

2013’s TOP SELLING ALBUMS

1. Justin Timberlake, The 20/20 Experience (2.43 million)
2. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (1.73 million)
3. Luke Bryan, Crash My Party (1.52 million)
4. Imagine Dragons, Night Visions (1.4 million)
5. Bruno Mars, Unorthodox Jukebox (1.4 million)
6. Florida Georgia Line, Here’s To The Good Times (1.35 million)
7. Drake, Nothing Was The Same (1.34 million)
8. Beyonce, Beyonce (1.3 million)
9. Blake Shelton, Based On A True Story (1.11 million)
10. Jay Z, Magna Carta…Holy Grail (1.1 million)

[Via Billboard]

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