At the midway point of 2011, Adele and Katy Perry are the leaders in terms of album sales (Adele's "21") and digital downloads for a single (Perry's "E.T." ft. Kanye West). Adele's sophomore album, since its release on February 22nd, has sold 2,517,000 copies in the US according to Nielsen Soundscan, making it the only album to have sold more than two million copies this year. In fact, only one other labum, Lady Gaga's "Born this Way", has gone platinum, and it's almost a million copies behind, at 1,540,000. Mumford & Sons, meanwhile, come in at No. 3, as their debut album "Sigh No More" sold 982,000 copies in the first six months of the year.
Katy Perry's collaboration with Kanye West, meanwhile led the digital sales charge for singles with 4,120,000 downloads. Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" is the only other title to be downloaded over 4 million times, at 4,089,000. It's the first time since digital sales have been tracked that two songs moves 4 million copies at the midway point. Last year, Train's "Hey, Soul Sister" led at the midway point with 3,381,000 copies sold. In all, 52 songs have sold more than a million copies, compared to just 39 by the beginning of July last year. A total of 660.8 million digital songs have been sold so far this year, an 11 percent increase over last year.