For the past 15 years, *NSYNC has held the record for most albums sold in the first week at 2.4 million. This was achieved back in 2000 with their album No Strings Attached. It seemed like this record would never be touched – with CD sales on the decline (and I’m saying “CD sales” but I mean digital downloads too – however you end up buying the whole CDs worth of tracks and not just a few here and there) not even Taylor Swift was able to touch it (1989 sold “only” 1.3 mil its first week).
It was beginning to seem like *NSYNC would hold this record forever. That is until Adele came back on the scene with “25”. In the first 3-4 days of it being on sale it beat the record and is on pace to sell 2.9 million.
I’m having trouble even wrapping my head around it all – but I guess it is just proving that the CD/full album is not dead. And even though there are plenty of other options – buying just 1 or 2 songs, streaming on sites like spotify or, yes, illegally downloading it – people are still buying.
I am looking forward to listening to Adele’s new album (and will probably review it in early 2016) but one thing is for sure – I’m a stubborn fan girl and even though the damage has been done, I won’t be buying it this week to help her beat *NSYNC.
(On the plus side, *NSYNC still have the most first week sales for males or a group. Although that just seems like a stretch to try and make me feel better.)