In the age of music piracy and streaming, Adele has done what was once thought to be the impossible, she's sold more than 3 million copies of 25 in the first week of U.S. sales, shattering records, and that sales number could still grow yet.
Billboard reports it will have the final numbers on Sunday November 29 for the week closing on Thursday November 26, but for now it's confirmed that she's shattered all previous first week sales records.
The first milestone she hit was beating Britney Spears' record setting 1.3 million albums sold in the first week for a female artist. Adele blew past that in the first 48 hours of 25's release.
After that marker was reached, why not aim for the stars? Could Adele beat 'N Sync's record of 2.42 million in first week sales for the band's No Strings Attached debut in 2000? It did, and now the question is simply by how much?
Her singles "Hello" and "When We Were Young" have racked up a mammoth number of views on YouTube with more than half 1 billion and 28 million views respectively. Other videos, such as her performance on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, have similarly impressive view counts.
Withholding her album from streaming music sites obviously hasn't hurt her image, popularity or sales too much in the same way some of those things were damaging for Taylor Swift, when she chose to deny music streaming sites access to 1989.
In the coming days and weeks there will certainly be a lot of speculation around what would have happened if she had released 25 on music streaming services right out the gate. Would she have hit this 3 million mark? Probably not, but her reach might have been greater.
Check out her live performance of "When We Were Young" below.
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