RIANZ 2012 End of Year Music Charts

The year’s biggest selling artists have been announced by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ).

UK singer Adele claims the title for Best Selling Album in 2012 with her album ‘21’, holding the number one position for a 12 weeks and charting for a total of 48 weeks. The album also set a new longevity record of 38 (non-consecutive) weeks at #1, across 2011 and 2012 combined.

Continuing their reign from 2011, local act Six60 claims the #5 spot for Best Selling Album in 2012 and the #1 spot for biggest-selling local act. Locally the group claimed a 25 per cent share of the Kiwi Singles Chart, with an impressive five Top 20 singles.

Kiwi guitar legend Peter Posa returned to the charts with his album ‘White Rabbit: The Very Best Of Peter Posa’. This saw him claim the #1 album spot for six weeks, making his the second longest-running #1 album of 2012.

Two other local albums also made #1 during the year. The Black Seeds gained their second #1 album with ‘Dust And Dirt’ and local hip-hop crew Home Brew debuted at #1 with their self-titled album.

The biggest singles of 2012 proved they had staying power with 15 of the year’s Top 50 singles charting for 20 weeks or longer and six logging six months or more. Gotye's ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’, featuring Kimbra, recently re-joined the 2012 charts, pushing its total number of weeks on the chart to 36.

Locally, Flight of the Conchords had a successful sweep of the charts with the Cure Kids hit “Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That)”. The charitable ballad set digital sales records, selling Platinum in just two days and was the top-selling local single for 2012, sitting at #1 on the Singles Charts for two weeks.

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