Adele, Morgan Wallen, Justin Bieber, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo and Dua Lipa topped MRC Data’s 2021 Canada year-end report in a year when the nation saw on-demand streams hitting an all-time high as total album consumption was up almost 10% and vinyl sales ticked up more than 21%.
As was the case all over the globe, Adele’s eagerly anticipated return album, 30, topped the charts, debuting at No. 1 on the Canadian Billboard 200 chart with 70,000 first-week equivalent album units for the week ending Nov. 25. The album’s lead single, “Easy On Me,” topped three pop formats at Canadian radio (CHR, Hot AC and Mainstream AC) shortly after its debut, and almost beat Olivia Rodrigo’s record for the biggest one-week streaming total with 7.35 million streams for the week ending Oct. 21 — compared to 7.53 million streams for Rodrigo’s “Drivers License.”
In a year when Canadian on-demand streams surpassed the two billion weekly milestone for the first time, the top streaming hit of 2021 was Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” (84.7 million).
Teen phenom Rodrigo topped the album sales chart (which encompasses album sales, track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums) with her debut, Sour, which had 262,200 in total album-equivalent sales and 334.4 million on-demand audio streams, followed by Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album (235,000 units, 280 million on-demand streams), Bieber’s Justice (230,000 units, 271.2 million on-demand streams), The Kid LAROi’s F–k Love (202,000 units, 261 million on-demand streams) and Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia (185,000 units, 230 million on-demand streams). The top 10 was filled out by Drake, Adele, Pop Smoke, The Weeknd and Doja Cat.
Adele’s 30 ran the board on the other year-end charts, topping the top albums (total sales) tally with 114,000, as well as top digital album sales (23,000), top 10 physical CDs (81,000) and vinyl albums (10,000).
In the midst of the ongoing pandemic, total album consumption in Canada was up 9.2% (to 83.8 million), as was on-demand song streaming (up 10.6% to 107.6 billion) and and vinyl LP sales (up 21.8% to 1.1 million). Digital album sales, however, were down 26.9% (2.3 million), as were digital track sales (down 25% to 18.3 million) and total album sales (down 12.1% to 6.1 million). The top-selling vinyl albums of the year were Adele’s 30, Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) and Evermore, Harry Styles’ Fine Line and The Tragically Hip’s Saskadelphia.
