Adele's new album, '25,' breaking record sales
Adele's '25' debuted on Nov. 20. Her previous album, '21,' became the highest-selling album of both 2011 and 2012. The band 'N Sync previously held the record for most albums sold in a week.
Adele arrives at the 2013 Oscars in Los Angeles.
John Shearer/Invision/AP
Adele鈥檚 new album 鈥�25鈥� isn鈥檛 just big 鈥� it鈥檚 record-setting big.
鈥�25鈥� has broken the record for number of albums sold in one week since Nielsen began tracking such data in 1991. At press time, Adele鈥檚 album has sold, 2,433,000 albums. These numbers are from the album鈥檚 first four days, not even the whole week.
The record for most albums sold in a week was previously held by the band 'N Sync, which sold 2,416,000 albums in a week with their work 鈥淣o Strings Attached鈥� in 2000.
Adele鈥檚 sales are reportedly fairly evenly split between CD sales and digital album sales. Adele and her team opted not to make 鈥�25鈥� available on streaming services as of yet, which certainly could have contributed to these numbers 鈥� it seems fairly likely listeners would have opted to stream an album on Spotify or another service if that had been possible, but since it wasn鈥檛, buying the album was the only legal option.
For the all-time rankings of most albums ever sold in a week, early 2000s acts are clustered near the top of the list. Before Adele changed the rankings, 'N Sync also came in at number two with the amount of albums sold in a week for their album 鈥淐elebrity,鈥� which came out in 2001. Eminem鈥檚 2000 album 鈥淭he Marshall Mathers EP鈥� is third, followed by the Backstreet Boys鈥� 2000 album 鈥淏lack & Blue鈥� and Britney Spears鈥� 2000 work 鈥淥ops!... I Did It Again.鈥� An album from past these years doesn鈥檛 appear until Taylor Swift鈥檚 2012 work 鈥淩ed.鈥�
Why would this be? One obvious factor is Napster. The music-sharing service launched in June 1999. The service was no doubt still gaining popularity as all these albums from 2000 debuted. People were still going out and buying a CD as their default method of consuming music.聽
In addition, because of factors like a lack of music-sharing services and streaming music, consumers were simply buying more albums. Taylor Swift鈥檚 鈥�1989鈥� was the biggest album of 2014, selling 3.66 million copies that year. The 鈥淔rozen鈥� soundtrack was close behind 鈥�1989,鈥� selling 3.53 million.聽
By contrast, in 2000, that same 'N Sync album, 鈥淣o Strings Attached,鈥� sold 9.9 million copies and Eminem鈥檚 鈥淪lim鈥� was behind that with 7.92 million.聽