Adele’s ’30’ becomes first album in over a year to sell a million copies in US

Adele is breaking yet more records with ’30’, with her new album becoming the first record in over a year to sell a million copies in the US.

  • READ MORE: Adele – ‘30’ album review: dependable pop titan finally mixes things up

The singer’s long-awaited new album landed last month (November 19) and shot straight to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming the fastest-selling record of 2021 so far after clocking up 261,000 sales in the UK.

As Billboard report, MRC Data now shows that as of this week (December 6), ’30’ has sold over one million traditional album sales, across digital downloads, CD, vinyl and cassette. Its first week sales (November 19-25) were 692,000, with 225,000 more sold in its second week (to December 2).

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It becomes the first album in over a year to reach the milestone, with Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’ the last to sell a million in October last year. ‘Folklore’ was also the only album of 2020 to reach the milestone. ‘Lover’, Swift’s seventh album from 2019, was also the only album of that year to sell a million copies.

adele
Adele, 2021 (Picture: Simon Emmett / Press)

In the UK, ’30’ scored the biggest first-week sales for an album since Ed Sheeran’s ‘÷’ in 2017, as well as the biggest opener for a female solo album since Adele’s last album, ‘25‘, in 2015, according to the Official Charts Company.

The record is this week’s biggest seller on vinyl, with 16,700 copies sold on wax and the most-streamed album of the week with a staggering 55.7million plays across its 12 tracks.

Last month, reports emerged that more than 500,000 copies of Adele’s long-awaited new album ’30’ had been pressed on vinyl – causing a huge backlog and problems in the production line for others wishing to get LPs manufactured with the world’s limited resources.







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Figures from the music industry spoke to NME about what’s really causing the delays in manufacturing vinyl and artists getting their albums made, arguing that the blame does not lie at the feet of Adele.