Adele Makes History, Breaks First-Week Sales Records With 25
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- You might want to scratch Adele's 25 off of your loved one's Christmas list. Chances are they already own it.
To the surprise of almost no one, Adele has destroyed the record once held by N*Sync and has made 25 the highest selling first-week release in history. According to Billboard, with 2.43 million sales in just over three days that overtakes "No Strings Attached" from 2000 and its 2.41 million sales record.
25 is the best-selling album in its first week since they started keeping track of such things back in 1991, and she's not even done. Original sales forecasts put 25 at selling 2.5 million – but that has been expanded to 2.9 million after the strong opening. You know Aunt Linda is still waiting to buy her copy during Black Friday doorbusters Thursday night. So are a couple other hundred-thousand Aunt Lindas.
Really the formula is easy if you think about it. Take the biggest voice in music and keep her away for almost five years, bring her back with a song that racks up YouTube numbers even Taylor Swift and a band of models can't match, make sure anticipation is at hysterical levels when you announce that you can't stream it and you must purchase music again, then take a victory lap on Saturday Night Live with ratings only bested by a Donald Trump gaper delay broadcast. Easy.
Oh yeah, it helps if the album is confident and powerful and pretty great as well.
To put it into perspective, that Justin Bieber comeback album that the world was waiting for sold roughly 552 thousand copies in its first week – the previous best first-week of 2015. Adele is the Star Wars of music, and everything else is an Alien prequel.
We'll have to wait until Sunday to get the final numbers on 25's gargantuan week, but for now just know that the person across the Thanksgiving table from you is probably singing "When We Were Young" with a misty-eye and a tight grip on the ride home.
