Adele

Adele holds 15 Grammy Awards and 4 No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, with “Hello” (2015) setting a record as the fastest single to sell 1 million digital copies in the US in its first week. Her album 25 (2015) sold 3.38 million copies in its opening week, a 50% higher debut than #5 Beyoncé’s Lemonade, which sold 485,000 in its first week. This data-led achievement makes her the fastest-selling female artist of the 2010s, with 120 million records sold globally by 2022, a figure that is 20% higher than the average pop artist’s lifetime sales.