Twenty-seven-year-old Adele, full name Adele Adkins, has already notched up two number one albums with 19, released in 2008, and 21, which hit shops in 2011. In the modern day, where streaming has become the most used method of listening to music, the stars emphasis of not releasing the album is somewhat unfair.
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Oasis’s Be Here Now previously held the record for biggest first-week sales, after shifting 696,000 copies in 1997.
After processing the first sales reports through November 25, Nielsen Music reports the set has sold just over 3 million copies in the US 25 was released on November 20 through XL/Columbia Records.
The lead single from 25, “Hello”, is at number three in the United Kingdom singles chart.
It still has some way to go to match the sales of Adele’s last album 21, which is owned by 4.8 million people in the UK.
‘I am so overwhelmed and grateful to be able to even put another record out, and put it out how I want, ‘ she said in an Instagram post. The “Hello” hitmaker has been reported to have made over $25 million even though she barely moved for work past year, according to a Perez Hilton report.
Adele’s latest achievement comes as she announces European tour dates in 2016, which includes shows in Belfast, Manchester, London, Glasgow and Birmingham. Ed Sheeran’s Xpreviously held the record for most digital downloads sold in a week, with 95,709 units.
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Prior to Adele, the record-holder was Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle, with her 2009 debut I Dreamed A Dream, which sold 17,435 here in New Zealand. When looked at over the longer term, it has already shifted more copies than the collective total of the last nineteen number one British albums. While Adele’s team may have urged her to sign up with Apple Music or Spotify, it seems that the success of 25’s hard copies may not need these services going forward. Probably not, but her reach might have been greater. Surely it’s all there on tracks like “When We Were Young” and “Remedy” but some of “19’s ” buoyancy resurfaces, albeit evolved and refined, on songs like “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)”.
