Adele beats Carole King’s record for longest-charting album by a woman

Carole King’s Tapestry was an unqualified success in the ’70s, selling over ten million copies in America alone. To re-purpose a Wayne’s World joke about the similarity-ubiquitous Frampton Comes Alive, “if you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide.”

The record spent a whopping 318 weeks on the Billboard charts, including a run of 302 consecutive weeks between April 10, 1971 and Jan 15, 1977.

The album added 16 more non-consecutive weeks between 2010 and 2016, to reach the magical 318 week total – a figure that Adele surpassed this week as her 21 album notched up 319 weeks on the chart.

Adele’s 319 weeks have been consecutive, too, with 21 remaining on the charts since debuting at #1 on March 12, 2011.

Despite Adele beating King’s epic haul, Billboard were quick to note that from May 1991 until Dec 5, 2009 – “catalogue albums” (read: old albums) weren’t included on the Billboard 200, which means in all likelihood Tapestry would have enjoyed numerous charting weeks during that two-decade stretch.

Of course, you could also argue that King has a good 40 years head start on Adele, and therefore it makes Adele’s run all the more impressive. Either way, it’s another record broken by Adele, and another reason to revisit Tapestry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NdEIt-W6E8

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.