Gotye And Kimbra Crack A Year In US Chart

Gotye has today racked up 52 weeks – a full year – in the Billboard Hot 100 chart with his world-beating track Somebody That I Used To Know, which features Kimbra.

The top selling single of last year in America, the track spent eight weeks at the number one spot of the country's premier singles chart before being knocked off by Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe in June.

As well as being the top selling song of 2012 in America, the viral track – which has attracted over 360 million views on YouTube and a plethora of covers – was the number one Radio Song, Digital Song, Adult Pop Song and Alternative Song.

The track was also the biggest selling in the UK, with the track selling 1.39 million copies.

This week Somebody That I Used To Know even climbed a spot on the Hot 100 to 48, from 49 last week, after an increase in radio airplay. The only other track that has spent longer in the Hot 100 currently is Ellie Goulding's Lights, which has spent 54 weeks and peaked at two.

Elsewhere in the US charts this week, Havana Brown's latest hit Big Banana, featuring Dutch DJ/producer R3hab, continues to rise in the Dance/Club Play chart, up to two from eight.

South Australian band Atlas Genius' breakout single Trojans holds steady on the Alternative Songs chart as well, with the track dropping the one spot down to five. It's also had small drops to 19 on the Rock Songs chart and eight on the Rock Airplay chart.

This week Billboard also released the details of last year's highest selling album and – surprise – Adele has broken another record. Her album 21 is the first album to be the highest selling record two years in a row since Nielsen SoundScan starting keeping figures in 1991. Released through XL, it sold 4.41 million copies this year, down on last year's 'industry-saving' 5.82 million. Behind it was Taylor Swift's Red with 3.11 million sales and in third One Direction's Up All Night with 1.62 million. Mumford & Sons were not far from the top three, though, with 1.46 scans of their second full-length Babel, making it the year's top 'rock' album and fourth overall.

Total album sales fell by four percent to 315.96 million copies this year, with physical CD sales down 16 percent and digital sales up 14 percent to an all-time-high of 117.68 million.

Jack White's Blunderbuss was the highest selling vinyl album, with 34,000 sales. As was reported earlier in the year, overall vinyl record sales were up again in 2012 to 4.55 million sets.

Australia's ARIA end-of-year charts have yet to be released.