Adele By The Nielsen Numbers, Second Million Week, Tour Sells Out

Adele: A Monster

ADELE is indisputedly the BARRY BONDS of Pop music, and she's doing it without steroids. Her NIELSEN MUSIC sales figures this past week are the equivalent of 75 home runs. Here are some other factoids to chew over with your holiday meals, along with her just-confirmed, record-shattering second-week total of one million-plus, the first artist in NIELSEN history (going back to 1991) to have two separate million-selling sales weeks.

-- 3.38 MILLION ALBUMS SOLD: The largest sales week since NEILSEN began tracking point-of-sale purchases in 1991, dwarfing the total of the previous record-holder, NSYNC's "No Strings Attached" with a mere 2.42 million.

-- 41% OF ALL ALBUMS SOLD LAST WEEK: Of the 8.2 million albums sold in the U.S. according to NIELSEN, "25"'s 3.38 million represents 41%.  Weekly sales between late AUGUST and mid-NOVEMBER averged between 3.5 and 4.2 million. Approximately 1% of the U.S. population of 300 million bought an ADELE album last week.  The other 99% are expected to purchase one between now and the end of the year.

-- 335 COPIES SOLD PER MINUTE.

-- 25 SOLD MORE THAN TWICE THE COMBINED TOTAL OF THE #2-100 TITLES: Numbers 2 (JUSTIN BIEBER'S "Purpose" with 184,000) through 100 sold 1.48 million for the week. 

-- "25" IS THE ONLY ALBUM TO SELL AT LEAST 2 MILLION IN 2015: "25" is just the fourth album to sell a million copies in 2015, and it immediately becomes the year’s top seller, soaring past the 1.78 million sold in 2015 by TAYLOR SWIFT’s "1989."  Only two albums sold more in the entire year than "25" did in a single week: "1989" (3.66 million) and the "Frozen" soundtrack (3.53 million).

-- 1.71 MILLION CDs: A little over 50% of its 3.38 million total, it comprised 38% of all CD albums sold for the week (4.54 million).  Who said CDs are dead? Not ADELE.

-- 1.64 MILLION DIGITAL ALBUMS: Representing a a new single-week download sales record for an album, topping the previous record-holder, LADY GAGA's "Born This Way," which sold 662k back in MAY, 2011, and totaling 49% of the 3.43 million digital albums sold last week

-- 22,000 VINYL ALBUMS SOLD: The third-largest sales week in NIELSEN MUSIC history for an album on vinyl, topped only by JACK WHITE''s "Lazarus" (40,000) and PEARL JAM's "Vitalogy" (34,000).

-- In other ADELE news, general sale tickets for her 2016 EUROPEAN tour went on sale this morning at 9 (GMT), and as expected, they sold out "within minutes."

-- When advance tickets went on sale TUESDAY, fans who attempted to buy tickets received event details and shipping information that did not match the information they had entered, according to the BBC.

-- Fans then took to TWITTER and FACEBOOK to express their distress at lining for up to three hours only to be offered tickets being resold at as much as 30 times face value.

-- The tour gets underway FEBRUARY 29th and MARCH 1st at the SSE ARENA in BELFAST, IRELAND for two shows, before moving to DUBLIN's SARENA. The tour, which was originally swcheduled for four shows at LONDON's O2 ARENA on MARCH 15th, 16th, 17th and 19th, has added 12 new dates in MANCHESTER (MARCH 10th-11th), LONDON (MARCH 21st-22nd, APRIL 4th-5th), BIRMINGHAM (APRIL 1st-2nd), ZURICH (MAY 18th), LISBON (MAY 21st-22nd), AMSTERDAM (JUNE 4th and 6th) and ANTWERP (JUNE 15th). Tickets for those new dates go on pre-sale SUNDAY DECEMBER 7th for adele.com subscribers and to the general public MONDAY (DECEMBER 7th) at 9a (GMT)/10s (CET).

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