Lil Wayne Hugest of 2008; Swift, Coldplay Also Rank

Rapper scores best-selling album of past year, followed by Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Kid Rock and AC/DC

Not even Ronald Reagan could have topped this Carter administration.

After scoring the first million-plus sales debut in three years, Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III easily cruised to the top of the 2008 album chart, selling nearly 2.9 million copies, per Nielsen SoundScan.

With a mean grille, wobbly lyrics and smash hits like "Lollipop" and "A Milli," the mixtape king certainly helped the music biz from tanking even worse, but Tha Carter III is still the first year-end best-seller in the SoundScan era to move fewer than 3 million copies. SoundScan began tracking albums in '91.

"Lollipop," the rapper's first-ever Hot 100 chart-topper, also ruled the most cell phones last year with nearly 2.4 million ringtones sold.

But while Wayne scored the best-selling album, Taylor Swift was the best-selling artist. Her latest album, Fearless—which scored the year's biggest bow for a female artist—sold 2.11 million copies in two months to finish at No. 3 on the year-end chart, while her 2006 self-titled debut sold another 1.6 million at No. 6.

That's over 3.7 million copies combined.

(Fearless reached its double-platinum status last week. The album sold another 262,000 copies in the year's final days, extending Swift's current No. 1 run to three straight weeks. Fearless also topped the charts in its debut week last month.)

Coldplay, Kid Rock, AC/DC and Metallica also made some noise in 2008.

Song swipers or not, Chris Martin and crew's Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends sold 2.15 million at No. 2; Kid Rock's Rock N Roll Jesus sold 2 million at No. 4; AC/DC's Black Ice sold 1.92 million at No. 5; and Metallica's Death Magnetic sold 1.57 million at No. 7.

Kid Rock and AC/DC (a Wal-Mart exclusive) both withheld their albums from iTunes.

The year's other top 10 sellers were T.I.'s Paper Trail (1.52 million at No. 8), Jack Johnson's Sleep Through the Static (1.5 million at No. 9) and Beyoncé's I Am…Sasha Fierce (1.46 million at No. 10).

Four of the top 10 artists—Lil Wayne, Coldplay, T.I. and Beyoncé—got help from Hot 100 chart toppers this year. T.I. was the year's only artist to score two No. 1 singles, which he did with "Live Your Life" and "Whatever You Like."

With 428 million albums sold, sales were down more than 14 percent from last year's half-billion mark. This follows a similar decline, 15 percent, between 2006-7. As a percentage of market share, digital album sales continued to climb in '08, up by nearly half to 15 percent.

The one bright spot, of course, was digital song sales, which passed the billion-track mark for the first time this year. There were a total of 1.07 billion digital downloads in '08 compared to 844 million in '07. Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love," the first Hot 100 chart topper by a British female in 21 years, led the pack with 3.37 million downloads.

"Bleeding Love" was also the most played song online with nearly 10.7 million streams.

Despite all the Internet play, the past year saw a surge in vinyl album sales with 1.8 million sold, making 2008 he biggest year in the SoundScan era. Radiohead's In Rainbows was the top seller with 26,000 copies, but the sales boost primarily came from labels reissuing their catalog on deluxe slabs of 180-gram vinyl, the latest craze for die-hard audiophiles.

As far as the top album of the SoundScan era, Metallica's Metallica continues to gain on Shania Twain's Come on Over, which currently stands at No. 1 with nearly 15.5 million copies sold. The metal heads finished '07 having closed the gap to 370,000 (from 600,000 in '06), and today Metallica trails by just 154,000 copies. With their Death Magnetic tour running through next year, Metallica's eponymous classic could top Come on Over by summertime.

Here's a recap of 2008's top 10 albums:

1. Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne (2.88 million)
2. Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, Coldplay (2.15 million)
3. Fearless, Taylor Swift (2.11 million)
4. Rock N Roll Jesus, Kid Rock (2 million)
5. Black Ice, AC/DC (1.92 million)
6. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift (1.6 million)
7. Death Magnetic, Metallica (1.5 million)
8. Paper Trail, T.I. (1.52 million)
9. Sleep Through the Static, Jack Johnson (1.5 million)
10. I Am…Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé (1.46 million)