Named for a rock band who scored their first No. This is actually one of my pet theories, one I have used to explain the opening sales of many albums over the years. 1 this week, Justin Bieber’s Purpose, which debuted last week to a very respectable half-million in sales, likely to an army of millennials. Besides, news flash: When they are motivated, under-30s do still buy records, like Taylor Swift’s 1989-not to mention the album Adele knocks out of No. What made 21 so huge were big, dominant Top 40 hits-songs teens and twentysomethings were likely to hear-and 25 already has one such smash on it. Jones, in short, is a bit of a cautionary tale: Grayhead loyalty certainly helps an artist, but it can’t sustain a megablockbuster career. But that sophomore disc by Jones topped out at only four million total, she never scored a serious radio hit, and her career since has been much more modest. As I noted on a recent Slate Culture Gabfest, Jones sold an Adele-size 10 million of her Grammy-dominating 2002 debut Come Away with Me, and when she returned in 2004, Feels Like Home debuted to over a million in first-week sales. The list of all-time chart achievements in 25’s first week is a mile long: the first album to sell three million in a week in SoundScan history the first album to outsell the rest of the Billboard 200 albums- combined more compact discs sold (1.7 million CDs) than any album in 14 years, and the most digital albums sold (1.6 million downloads) in any week, ever.īut the same was true a decade ago of Norah Jones- remember her?-the early-aughts lite-jazz queen of Starbucks CD racks and NPR pledge drives. (What was I saying a few weeks ago about this lady and grand entrances?) That brain-melting total-the biggest sales week in Nielsen SoundScan history, and quite possibly all of chart history, for a music album-not only surpassed but annihilated the seemingly indomitable benchmark of 2.416 million copies ’N Sync’s No Strings Attached sold in the spring of 2000. In Adele’s case, truly explosive: Billboard and Nielsen report that, in just seven days, Adele sold 3.378 million copies of her third album, 25. The mysterious power of catching them all is still all the rage and will see another bump in popularity when Ryan Reynolds' Detective Pikachu hits theaters in May.So, what pop act am I describing: Adele, or ’N Sync?Īll of the above could apply to either of them: the diamond-level sales for a prior album, and the progenitor acts they outdistanced ( Backstreet Boys for ’N Sync, Amy Winehouse for Adele) the stopgap soundtrack hits and holiday releases the long career pause (in ’N Sync’s case, over a fight with a corrupt manager and a label switch for Adele, throat surgery, a baby, and a bout of career ennui) and finally, the explosive, expectation-shattering chart return. Kids and their parents more than likely at the very least knew the melody, with some hardcore fans taking down the entire rap and nailing every character in the process. It's pretty amazing to think that James "D-Train" Williams and John Siegler were able to create something that pulled off that feat and kept it interesting and catchy. The Pokémon rap got longer each week, adding more characters until there were 150. The band probably didn't really care all that much about recording their version of the rap, as they can be seen and heard flubbing the names of some of the most beloved Pokémon characters, though Timberlake seems to know his stuff. That being said, the boyband version of the PokeRap is pretty embarrassing, maybe even more embarrassing than the time that Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears wore matching denim outfits. 'NSync also appeared on Pokemon: The First Movie soundtrack, an album that sold over 2 million copies in the United States alone, going on to chart all over the world.
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