Adele's new album is projected to be the fastest-selling in chart history
Billboard reports that if industry projections for the album's sales are hit, it will be the largest-selling album in a week in Nielsen SoundScan history (the company started monitoring album sales in 1991). It would beat the record currently held by *NSYNC's "No Strings Attached," which came out in 2000.
Sony Music projects first-week CD sales for "25," which comes out Friday, at 1.5 million, while downloads should come in at about 1 million. "25" is expected to have a larger proportion of digital sales than Adele's previous album, "19," whose digital copies only accounted for 28 percent of sales.
If that holds, Adele will be selling a total 2.5 million copies in her first week. The *NSYNC album sold 2.4 million 15 years ago.
Additionally, Adele's album will not be available on streaming services Spotify or Apple Music.
It goes without saying at this point, but this kind of sales achievement is unheard of in the current music market. It seems Adele is breaking one record after another.