( Rolling Stone ) -- With 2012 halfway done , Adele 's 21 and Gotye 's `` Somebody That I Used to Know '' ( featuring Kimbra ) are the biggest selling album and digital song of the year in the U.S. respectively , Billboard reports . `` 21 '' has continued its amazing run a year after its initial release , selling 3.69 million copies through the sales week that ended July 1 , the mid-year point for tracker Nielsen SoundScan . It was the best selling album halfway through last year as well , with 2.5 million copies sold . This is the first time in SoundScan 's 21-year history that the same record has been the top seller in the first halves of any two years . If `` 21 '' continues to fly off the shelves at this rate , it could be the first record in the SoundScan era to top the year-end charts twice . `` 21 's '' midway-point sales figures also mark another first in the SoundScan era -- it 's the first time just one album has sold over a millioncopies in the year 's first six months . The runner-up , Lionel Richie 's `` Tuskegee , '' has moved 912,000 copies . To cap it all off , Adele 's 2008 record , `` 19 , '' finds itself as the tenth-highest selling record so far this year with 539,000 sold , making her the first artist to have two albums in the top 10 since Justin Bieber scored a pair halfway through 2010 with `` My World 2.0 '' at No . 2 and `` My World '' at No . 9 . As for Gotye 's ubiquitous `` Somebody That I Used to Know , '' that track has a digital sales figure of 5.50 million for the year to date , according to SoundScan . Odds are looking good that the track will become the first to sell six million downloads in a year . `` Somebody '' also marks the first time a song has sold over 5 million in the first half of a year , though Gotye 's smash was n't alone in that feat , joined by Fun . 's `` We Are Young '' ( featuring Janelle Monae ) , which has sold 5.09 million . A quick rundown of the top selling albums this year finds breakout British boy band One Direction 's `` Up All Night '' sitting at third with 889,000 copies sold . Whitney Houston 's Whitney : The Greatest Hits sold 818,000 to place it at No . 4 , while the compilation Now 41 takes the fifth spot with 714,000 . You can check out the full list of top selling albums here . On the singles side , following Gotye and Fun . is Carly Rae Jepsen 's `` Call Me Maybe '' with 4,064,000 sold . At the Number 4 spot is Kelly Clarkson 's `` Stronger ( What Does n't Kill You ) '' with 3,324,000 sold , while Nicki Minaj 's `` Starships '' comes in at No . 5 with 3,158,000 . You can check out the full list of top selling digital songs here . See full story at RollingStone.com .
Midway through 2012 , Adele and Gotye are reigning on the charts . `` 21 '' is the first time the same record has been the top seller in the first halves of any two years . It's also a big deal for Adele, who was never able to break into the US Top 10 before her breakthrough hit'Someone