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Artist News Labels & Publishers Releases
Adele breaks US chart record, Bieber gets one for himself too
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 25 November 2015
Further to previous records on the matter, it is now on the record that a previously held record has been replaced by a new record secured by the new record by Adele. Yeah, we’re still doing the record-record-record thing, what of it?
Basically, Adele has already broken the record for the highest first week sales in the US since the beginning of time (or at least since Nielsen started counting in 1991). The record was previously held by *Nsync’s ‘No Strings Attached’, which sold 2.4 million copies in its first seven days back in 2000. Yesterday it was confirmed that Adele had already passed this milestone, with projected US sales of 2.9 million by the end of Thursday.
Lots of people are now likely saying, “Well, that’s what you can achieve if you hold your record of streaming services”. But, of course, what you should really be saying is, “Well, that’s what you can achieve if you are Adele”. She, of course, is awakening a large existing fanbase, a large proportion of whom still aren’t entirely sure what a streaming service is; many aren’t really down with downloads either.
Not that Adele won’t have shifted some records as a result her no-streams-yet windowing strategy – some impatient subscribers to Spotify et al will have rushed out to buy the album, even if they are a little pissed off that, despite being part of the record industry’s most important customer base, they are being deprived of the record industry’s most important release of the moment. But if you see me afterward, I can give you a list of albums I’ve not been able to listen to on Spotify yet that didn’t even break one sales record, let alone all of them.
Actually, speaking of US chart records, here’s one Adele hasn’t actually broken. Justin Bieber has smashed the one held by the Beatles for 51 years, namely that of having the most songs in the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. Seventeen, the Biebster’s got in there at the moment. He’s managed it by releasing videos for every track on his new album, Billboard’s YouTube play-counting working to his advantage. Also, he’s a super nice guy now, which shouldn’t be overlooked.