XL Recordings/Columbia RecordingsSunday marked the 10-year anniversary of Adele‘s breakthrough album, 21, which debuted in the U.K. and Europe on January 24, 2011. The album set numerous records, earned multiple awards and was the best-selling album in both 2011 and 2012.
Adele marked her second studio album’s milestone anniversary with an emotional tribute over the weekend, writing, “Well I never! Happy 10 years old friend!”
Continued the 15-time Grammy winner, “It’s crazy how little I remember of what it was like and how I felt a decade ago. But Thank You from the bottom of my heart for letting us into your lives and letting me be a soundtrack to some of it.”
She sealed her dedication with a fond “x,” which is commonly used in the U.K. to represent kisses.
21 is widely credited for catapulting Adele, 32, into the spotlight. The album, her followup to her 2008 debut 19, spawned hits “Rolling in the Deep,” “Someone like You,” “Rumor Has It” and “Set Fire to the Rain.”
It won Best Pop Vocal and Album of the Year at the 2012 Grammy Awards.
The album also earned Adele several Guinness World Records, including biggest-selling digital album in the U.S. and the U.K., album with the most consecutive and cumulative weeks at number 1 in the U.K. by a solo female artist, and the first album in U.K. chart history to sell over three million copies in a calendar year.
In the U.S., 21 was released February 22, 2011 and went on to earn RIAA-certified Diamond status for selling over 10 million copies in the country.
The album went onto become the best-selling album in the U.S., U.K., Canada and on iTunes for two years straight, the first album to achieve such an honor since Michael Jackson‘s Thriller, which ruled the charts in 1983 and 1984.
By Megan Stone
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