Adele performs at the Ogden Theatre on May 29, 2011. Photo by Joe McCabe.
On a purely anecdotal, human level, we all had an -shaped hole in our hearts last year. As soon as word came that the 26-year-old British singer was , an swept across the Internet.
Friend or foe of her chamomile balladry, once “25” dropped, it was on you like glitter. The radio played it like Colombia Records had broke the bank on payola. (“Hello” alone has been spun an estimated 270,000 times on the radio, which at five minutes per play, shakes out to about two-and-a-half years of total time.) on once unfertilized YouTube ground. It multiplied in our favorite record stores, and in , own our homes.
In just two months, Adele destroyed 2015. Now, we have the numbers to prove it. Nielsen’s just-released 2015 U.S. music report details the extent of the carnage:
• “25” was easily the best-selling album of 2015, outpacing Taylor Swift’s “1989,” which sold 1,993,000 by about 5.5 million units sold.
• In fact, “25” smashed the first-week sales record for the SoundScan era, selling just under a million more than the previous record holder (N’SYNC’s “No Strings Attached” had the previous record with 2,416,000 units).
• Adele sold so many copies of “25” in its first week that it accounted for 41% of all record sales in those seven days.
• In just the six weeks it was available in 2015, “25” shot to the 61st best-selling album in the SoundScan era, moving 7.4 million units.
• She even got through to hipsters: With 116,000 units sold, Adele’s “25” easily topped the vinyl sales chart in 2015.
In other words, for the record industry as well as consumers’ hearts, “25” is a force of nature. She may have had only the 764th in the U.S. in 2014, but we now know, 2015 (and probably 2016, ) belongs to Adele.
