Adele is raking in the bucks with a record-setting 730,000 albums sold in the first 7 days following the Grammy Awards show. The intensifying interest in Adele’s music heralds a new phase of her breakout career.
This English rose has reason to be grinning from ear to ear. Her Grammy performance—the first after surgery--was a smashing success. Beyond the performance, she also took home trophies in three categories. And now, she is raking in the bucks with a record-setting 730,000 albums sold in the first week after the 54th Grammy Awards show, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
This milestone constitutes the biggest jump in one-week sales for an individual performer since the Grammys started. The last time that a record sold over 730,000 copies was in 2007 when Josh Groban’s “Noel” sent more than 757,000 records out the door in the hands of the purchasing public, during Christmas season.
While stargazers would expect a big lift to her sales in the post-Grammy period, in fact, watching Adele perform and rooting for this woman who refuses to be a victim or look back with regret, may have brought out the emotional side of the audience, and further committed them to her. While Adele’s six Grammy wins on February 12th were a record for a solo artist in a single night, the power of her voice obviously came back to propel listeners to actually purchase the music. “Rolling in the Deep”, which took the prize both for Song of the Year and Record of the Year, was a track from 21, which won Album of the Year. Another track from that album, “Someone Like You,” added to the concentration of star power and earned her “Pop Solo Of The Year.”
Adele's record label, Sony, is sitting pretty for sure. During Adele’s 52 weeks on the Billboard chart, 21 has never been out of the top ten. Another measure of success: 21 spent its 21st nonconsecutive week at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart.
Adele’s 21 album also claims title to the longest-running album at the top spot—No. 1--by a woman in history. This record overtakes the one set by The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston’s trailblazer, in 1992.
Previously, the record for a post-Grammy sales jump was held by Norah Jones, whose debut album Come Away With Me, was launched in 2002. In that year, the soloist earned 5 Grammys including Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best New Album. However, over the same 7 day period following the awards show, Norah Jones saw sales rise to 621,000 albums, which is a hefty bounce, but not quite as large as Adele’s post-Grammy lift.
Just in case it appears that these ladies are the only ones making it in the shade, the buzz from winning a Grammy also enhanced other acts that hit it big on Grammy night. For those of us who are not up on the country music scene, it may come as a surprise that the second-biggest boost was earned by Civil Wars, a folk-country duo whose debut album went from No. 39 to No. 8 on Billboard Magazine’s Top 200 Album list. Since they were relatively unknown to the general public before the show, the publicity that surrounded them upon winning was particularly sweet. One-week sales of their album Barton Hollow went from 12,800 to 35,600 in a week-to-week comparison, before and after the show.
Other Grammy Award winners that enjoyed a lucrative uptick in sales post-showtime included Foo Fighters, Bon Iver, Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars and Tony Bennett.
But the final celebrity of the night with eye-popping post-Grammy sales was the one who did not even make an appearance, for the saddest of reasons: Whitney Houston. Her “Greatest Hits” album shot up to the top slot on Billboard’s Catalogue chart last week, and ran up another whopping 183% growth this week. Had it not been for the fact that Billboard magazine eliminates albums from the running if they are from too far back in time, then Whitney Houston could have claimed to have the No. 2 selling album for the current period.
Image source of Grammy winner artist Adele: Wikipedia
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