The previous single week albums sales record was set by NSYNC in 2000.* That was pre-Napster, before Rhapsody and Spotify and Apple Music.
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Adele is rolling in album sales with 3.4 million copies sold in a week, of her new album “25” in the US.
Adele has made history yet again with her brand new album 25 released through XL/Columbia Records. The powerhouse album shifted an unprecedented 3.48 million copies in its first tracking week, which is enough to secure the number one spot many, many times over. It beats the previous record-holder by almost a million copies: Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, when it arrived with 662,000 digital copies sold in the week ending May 29, 2011. Here are some more: Not only is 25 the first album to sell more than 3 million copies in a week-it’s only the second to surpass 2 million sold in a single frame, and only the 20th to sell at least a million copies in a week.
The “Hello” singer managed to shift an astonishing 3.38 million copies of her third studio release in the first seven days it was on sale. It was a milestone she was able to shatter in just three days.
The British record is held by rockers Oasis, whose Be Here Now sold 696,000 copies in its first week in 1997.
Adele’s coup comes in a climate much less hospitable to blockbusters: at the turn of the millennium, retailers were selling about 700 million CDs a year, while last year just 247 million albums were sold in CDs and downloads combined, according to Nielsen. That puts “25” squarely in Taylor Swift territory – great storytelling, smart production, judiciously big dramas – plus a dose of secret soul all her own. Some industry forecasters suggest the album could sell another million copies in its second week, making it the first album to sell a million copies in more than one week. In fact, in what might be a telling fact about the clout of major artists, the two biggest-selling albums of the past two years – Adele’s 25 and Taylor Swift’s 1989 – are both absent from services that offer free, ad-based, streaming.
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Billboard magazine, which runs the benchmark U.S. chart, earlier predicted that 25would sell around 2.9 million copies in its first week in the US.
