Adele has broken the Official UK Album Chart record for the fastest million-selling album ever with “25”.
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25 has managed to hit the one million sales mark in the United Kingdom within 10 days of its release and is the biggest album of 2015 already. To put 25’s staggering figure in further perspective, in 2014, only two albums sold more in the entire year than 25 did in a single week: Taylor Swift’s 1989 (3.66 million) and the Frozen soundtrack (3.53 million).
These are numbers that are increasingly rare in the music industry, where album sales are affected by illegal downloads and streaming services.
Although some songs like “Send My Love” or “Water Under the Bridge” have a more bouncy and jazzy rhythm, most of this record’s songs are of a slower, more meditative pace, and the recurrent themes across her three albums sometimes seem quite repetitive. 25 is the first album to sell more than 3 million copies in a week in Nielsen history, and only the second to surpass 2 million sold in a single frame.
The “Hello” singer’s new album also debuted at number on the Billboard 200 chart, according to Billboard.
Billboard reported that 25 beat NSYNC’s record, which sold 2.42 million during its release week in 2001.
The album, which is not available through online streaming services – the booming sector that allows unlimited on-demand music – is led by the opening ballad Hello. Adele and her US label, Sony, can do that because of the unique leverage offered by the fact Adele’s last album, “21”, sold 11 million copies. Adele taking the top spot was a foregone conclusion, but the history-making way she did it continues to impress.
The singer released her third studio album on Friday, Nov. 20. She sold just over 800,000 copies in her debut week. Still, the success of Beyoncé’s album couldn’t come close to matching what both Taylor Swift and Adele had in store.
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25 is off to a better start than its predecessor and with no other big name outings on the docket for the rest of the year – unless Kanye West surprises everybody with his long-awaited Swish – it’s nearly a given that it will go on a prolonged run.
