Alasdair McLellanAdele has been named Billboard’s Artist of the Year for an unprecedented third time.
The reason? The success of her smash album 25, which sold a record 3.4 million copies in its first week. It spent 10 weeks at #1, and has subsequently gone on to sell over 9 million copies. 25 is also Billboard’s top album of 2016. Its lead single, “Hello,” stayed at #1 for 10 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and inspired memes, a Saturday Night Live skit, and a record-setting Carpool Karaoke segment.
Adele is also Billboard’s Top Female Artist of the Year, Top Album Artist of the Year, Adult Contemporary Artist of the Year, Top Digital Albums Artist and Top Adult Pop Songs Artist. Her sold-out tour also ranked as the #4 tour of the year.
One of the year-end charts that Adele didn’t top is Hot 100 Songs — and that honor belongs to Justin Bieber. Go ahead and call it a comeback, because it very much is: the Bieb has the #1 song and the #2 song of the year on the chart: “Love Yourself” and “Sorry,” respectively.
The last time an artist had both top songs of the year was back in 2004, when Justin’s mentor Usher scored with “Yeah!” and “Burn.”
Justin is also Billboard’s Top Male Artist of the Year, Top Radio Songs Artist, Top Digital Songs Artist, Top Social 50 Artist and Top Pop Songs Artist.
Billboard’s Top Duo or Group of the Year is pop/rock duo Twenty One Pilots, beating out Coldplay for the #1 spot, while R&B singer Bryson Tiller is the Top New Artist of the Year, beating out former One Direction member Zayn Malik for the honor.
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