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Adele's 25 breaks Oasis' first week sales record

The singer sails past Oasis' first chart week sales record.

adele-25-1100.jpg

As sales of Adele's 25 continue to plough ahead this week, The Official Charts Company can confirm today (November 26) that she's passed Oasis' week one sales record.

Sales of 25 stand at 737,000 in today's sales flash, sailing past the 696,000 opening week sales Oasis racked up with Be Here Now in 1997. However, the band's album was released on a Thursday so only had three days of sales registering towards its first chart week (its seven day sales total was 813,000). 

By comparison, when 21 was first released in January 2011 it sold 208,000 copies in its first week, finally passing 500,000 sales in its fourth week on sale. It only achieved its biggest one-week tally in its 10th week on sale, a total of 258,000 copies.

MORE: See where all of Adeles singles and albums have charted in the UK

Her debut 19 sold 73,000 copies in its first week on release in February 2008, a total which it never again matched – it hit the 500,000 sales mark after 53 weeks on sale.

Adele's final sales sales of 25 will be revealed tomorrow on OfficialCharts.com at 5.45pm and on BBC Radio 1's Official Chart show between 4pm and 6pm. Click here to view the current Top 100.

MORE: 10 mind-blowing Official Chart facts about Adele

Watch Adele, Jimmy Fallon and The Roots perform Hello with the help of classroom instruments below: 

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BCC

Brian C. Cole

1

Music Business Worldwide cleared up the matter with this statement, clearly indicating the record belongs to Adele, not Oasis:

"Back in 1997, Official UK sales were collected differently.
Once all real sales has been accounted for, ‘panel sales’ were then added to the tally. These were an approximation of what was sold in independent stores which didn’t report to the OCC.

‘Panel sales’ are usually no longer a part of an album’s first week’s sales, MBW is told. Adele’s 25 has hit 800,000+ without them.

As such, looking at apples-to-apples ‘real’ sales, 25’s first week is bigger than Be Here Now."

Here is the link to MBW's article: http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/adele-scrubbed-oasiss-now-uk-record-books-bit-complicated/

BCC

Brian C. Cole

1

"Panel sales" counted towards Oasis' 813,000 total, which is why the official and corrected total was soon adjusted down to 763,000. Adele hit 800,000 without any "panel sales," and in a much more depressed CD market. Besides, why do you drop the extra 50,000 off of the record for 15 plus years, and decide to add it back this week when Adele can't benefit from "panel sales"? And I like many of Oasis' songs, especially "Champaign Supernova." But you can't and don't change the rules in the middle of the game when you see Adele is going to break the official record but not the inflated record. Yes these are two replies I posted earlier combined into one comment (for those who feel the need to point that out).

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Bengy

0

MBW now have an update.

"UPDATE: However, things are different when you look at both albums’ first full sales week – ie. the first seven days they were both on sale.

Oasis sold 813,000 copies of Be Here Now in the record’s first seven days on sale, according to Official Charts data from the time – ie. the album’s first full week.

25’s full week tally (to the end of play on Thurdsay) was just over 803,000 sales, according to the Official Charts Company.

MBW originally raised the point, informed by industry experts, that ‘panel sales’ may have boosted Oasis’s tally – and because Adele operates in an era where these don’t exist, they may have unfairly weighed in Be Here Now’s favour.

‘Panel sales’ were essentially an approximation of an album’s performance across retailers who did not report their data to the OCC.

However, Official Charts Company data experts have now told MBW that ‘panel sales’ were not part of Be Here Now’s sales, as the practice had died out by the time the LP arrived in August 1997."

So Panel sales is a red herring.

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etin

0

why other singers' albums dont sell. Dont understand

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Bengy

2

You say "its seven day sales total was 813,000" for Oasis. But this was later downgraded to 763,735.

S

Seb

0

Yes, perhaps someone at OCC could comment on this? Kind of important as 25 might pass one but not the other. The question is, was there a reliable way of getting Sun-Wed sales out of a chart week? The total for week 2 was given as 235K so is (813-696)117 just half of this as an estimate?

J

JBOX

0

Do you know where can I find a source that states the downgraded 763k figure, I'd appreciate it.

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Johnny McVey

1

Here you go

http://www.nme.com/photos/50-fastest-selling-albums-ever/213617

J

JBOX

0

Thanks

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Bengy

-1

OCC have now confirmed that the NME figure is incorrect and that they are sticking with the 813,000 Oasis figure.

S

Seb

0

Thanks. I found this: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2013/6/from-the-rolling-stones-to-arctic-monkeys-glastonbury-2013-in-world-records-49414/ Guinness World Records from 2013, giving the Oasis 3 day week as 663,389. So even that is not certain.

BCC

Brian C. Cole

0

"Panel sales" counted towards Oasis' 813,000 total, which is why the official and corrected total was soon adjusted down to 763,000. Adele hit 800,000 without any "panel sales," and in a much more depressed CD market. Besides, why do you drop the extra 50,000 off of the record for 15 plus years, and decide to add it back this week when Adele can't benefit from "panel sales"?

BCC

Brian C. Cole

0

And I like many of Oasis' songs, especially "Champaign Supernova." But you can't and don't change the rules in the middle of the game when you see Adele is going to break the official record but not the inflated record.

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Bushy

3

Adeles way more impressive cause of the current sales market. I saw a chart about US sales that implied that current sales are worth 2.5 times the sales from 15 years back. Which would put her current sales at over 1.8 million first week (at least) compared to Oasis number.

F

Fahad

0

So huge!