Adele ‘25’ was the biggest selling album in Australia this week generating ‘heyday’ sales of 126,063 copies.
The momentum of ‘25’ has also driven Adele’s first two albums ‘19’ and ‘21’ back into the Top 20 with ‘21’ at no 7 selling 4,056 copies and ‘19’ at no 13 selling 2,436.
Adele’s success has made the previous number one and fastest seller of the year, Justin Bieber’s ‘Purpose’ pale into insignificance despite selling around 60,000 copies in two weeks. Adele ‘25’ doubled Bieber’s two-week tally in just seven days.
Adele’s ‘25’ is way more success than Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’. ‘1989’, released in October 2014, sold 43,428 in the first three days (It was released in Australia on a Wednesday to match the international release day and therefore that three active days for the week’s chart). In the second week, with seven days of sales, it sold a further 21,160 copies, a total of 64,588 in its first 10 days on sale.
By comparison, every release in 2015 looks limp compared to Adele sales. 40% of all album sales in the Top 500 albums this week were Adele albums. ‘25’ sold one third of all albums in the Top 500. The top 5 albums sold as many albums as number 6 to 500.
The impact of Adele is unprecedented in the current music business. She is the exception to the rule, not the rule. Trying to justify a turn-around in the music business is the same as trying to justify global warming not being real because of a cold week. Adele has been great for retail. 59,360 of last week’s ‘25’ sales were physical copies. Retail reported that people who come in to buy an Adele album and buy two or three other titles while they were there.
However, don’t count on Adele to be the saviour of the industry. There probably won’t be another album like Adele ‘25’ until she records a follow-up.
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Never miss a story! Get your free Noise11.com daily music news email alert. Subscribe to the Noise11 Music Newsletter here
Listen to the Noise11 Music News channel now at iHeartRadio
Follow Noise11.com on Facebook and Twitter
NOISE11 UPDATES are now in Apple News
