Adele performs on stage during RTL's end-of-year review '2015! Menschen, Bilder, Emotionen' in Huerth, Germany on Dec. 6, 2015.
'25' is only the sixth album released since 2001 to sell 8 million in the U.S.
Adele’s mega-successful 25 album has now sold 8 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen Music. The set sold another 89,000 copies in the week ending Feb. 4, bringing its total sum to 8.03 million.
25 is just the sixth album released since 2001 to have sold 8 million copies. It follows 21, Usher’s Confessions (released in 2004, 10.3 million sold), 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003, 8.4 million), Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me (2002, 11.1 million) and Eminem’s The Eminem Show (2002, 10.6 million).
Nielsen Music began electronically tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991, the same year Billboard started using the company’s data to compile the Billboard 200 albums chart.
25 remains the biggest-selling album released since Adele’s own 21, which bowed in 2011. The latter has sold 11.5 million, and is the 10th largest selling album in Nielsen Music history. 25 was released on Nov. 20, 2015 through XL Recordings/Columbia Records. It is Adele’s third studio album and has spent eight nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991, there are 46 albums that have sold at least 8 million copies.
Further, Adele is the third solo woman to have tallied two 8 million sellers since 1991. Celine Dion and Britney Spears are the other leading ladies: Dion did it with three albums -- Falling Into You (released in 1996; 10.8 million), Let’s Talk About Love (1997; 9.6 million) and All the Way: A Decade of Song (1999, 8.1 million) -- while Spears scored with …Baby One More Time (1999, 10.6 million) and Oops!…I Did It Again (2000, 9.2 million).