The UK's Official Top 100 biggest albums by female artists of the century

March 8 is International Women's Day, and while the intention behind it is laudabe, it should - of course - be a way we live, rather than a symbolic day. 

To mark the occasion, Official Charts is honouring the female voices that have cut through and dominated the music landscape over the last two decades by revealing the UK's Official Top 100 biggest albums fronted by female artists since 2000.

Unsurprisingly, Adele features prominently, having released some of the most successful albums of all time over the past 12 years. Her second collection 21 tops the list with 5.12 million chart sales (pure sales and streaming equivalent sales combined), while 25 is at 3 (3.6m) and her 2008 debut 19 places ninth (2.45m). It was in 2011 that Adele's success went stratospheric, when a raw and emotional performance of Someone Like You at the BRIT Awards cemented her status as the voice of a generation.

Adele in 2011 (Press)

Another artist with multiple entries in the list is Amy Winehouse. Her second record Back To Black - a dark and often heartbreaking collection of soul-pop that would be her last living release - is the UK's second biggest female artist album of the century with 4.03m chart sales. Amy's debut album Frank - equally as critically adored - ranks 55th on 1.09m, while posthumous collection Lioness: Hidden Treasures is at 80 on 896k.

Big hitters Rihanna and Madonna each make four entries in the Top 100, while Beyonce - who after more than 20 years in music continues to push boundaries for feminism and women of colour - makes three entries with I Am Sasha Fierce (1.74m), Dangerously In Love (1.26m) and 4 (791k). More R&B/soul artists are represented on the list with two albums by British singer Gabrielle, Emeli Sande's thunderously successful debut Our Version of Events (2.44m), a pair of Whitney Houston retrospectives and two hugely successful records by Alicia Keys.

However, it's Pink who has the most entries on the list, with five. 2002's Missundazstood - which featured chart-topper Just Like A Pill and hits Get The Party Started, Don't Let Me Get and Family Portrait - is her biggest overall on 1.86m. The album saw the US singer-songwriter take creative authority over her music and image, fighting against the hyper-sexualised teen-pop sound of the early 2000s. It's best summarised in Don't Let Me Get Me's opening line, which takes aim at Arista Records' label head L.A Reid: "L.A. told me, 'You’ll be a pop star/ All you have to change is everything you are.'" 

Female rock and folk artists also feature in the Top 100, including albums by KT Tunstall, Sharleen Spiteri-led Scottish band Texas and the Amy Lee-fronted Evanescence. Girl groups, many of which have always promoted a message of female solidarity, score multiple entries in the list, including Destiny's Child, Little Mix, Sugababes and Girls Aloud. 

MORE: The biggest girl group albums of the last 25 years

Elsewhere, a handful of albums in the Top 100 released before 2000 continue to enjoy success more than 20 years on, including Tracey Chapman's self-titled debut released in 1988 (589k since 2000), and Songbird by Eva Cassidy - a compilation of the US singer's work released two years after her death in 1998 that went on to top the chart in 2001 (1.84m since 2000).

The UK's Top 100 Biggest Albums By Female Acts of the Century

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Article image: Shutterstock (Beyonce)/Press