British award winning singer Adele has broken the record previously held by Madonna for the album by a female solo artist which has stayed at the top of the UK chart for the longest period of time.

This week saw 21 by Adele stay in the number one spot in the chart for the tenth consecutive week beating off the record set by Madonna in 1990 for her greatest hits album, the Immaculate Collection.

While after ten weeks at the top you may be expecting sales to be dropping off this last week actually saw more than 270,000 copies of the album sold in the UK alone representing a week on week increase of 65%.

21 may be popular in the UK but it has also proved to be an enormous hit internationally with the second album from the singer from London reaching number one in 17 countries across Europe as well as the the coveted top spot in the US.

Not only is 21 proving to be a storming success, the first album from the young singer, entitled 19, continues to ride high in the charts and is currently sitting pretty at number two in the UK album chart, beating off Ronan Keating with his collaboration with singing legend Burt Bacharach – When Ronan Met Burt.

Martin Talbot from the Official Charts Company put the success of the album this week down to the effect of Mother's Day in the UK.

He said: “This is notoriously one of the quietest times of the year for the record industry, so what she has achieved is astonishing. She has gone from being a promising young artist, who existed slightly in the slipstream of acts like Duffy, to become the biggest act in the UK by a country mile.”

He added: “To do so well, you have often got to be quite cheesy, but she's the opposite of cheese – she's popular right across the spectrum.

Adele is now knocking on the door of of Bob Marley and the Wailers, who hold the record for most consecutive weeks at number one in the album chart which was set in 1984 after 12 weeks at the top.