28 November 2015
Newsdesk
Adele has stormed to the top of the U.K. album charts with the biggest single-week sales ever.
Her new release, 25, has sold more than 800,000 copies in its first week, shifting more copies than the next 86 albums combined.
It has also become the first album to sell more than 100,000 downloads in the U.K. in a week.
The previous album sales record was set by Oasis' Be Here Now (696,000) in 1997.
25 will also debut at the top of the U.S. album charts this weekend (29Nov15) with first-week sales in excess of 3 million - 600,000 more than the previous single-week sales record set by 'N SYNC's No Strings Attached in 2000.
Adele has toppled One Direction in the U.K. - the boy band's Made in the A.M. slips to five, while another former number one, Elvis Presley's If I Can Dream, rises to two on the new countdown, one place ahead of Justin Bieber's Purpose. Enya's new album Dark Sky Island debuts at four.
Meanwhile, Bieber has three singles in the U.K. top five for the second week in a row - Sorry is at one, Love Yourself at two and What Do You Mean? at four.
Adele has had a busy few weeks since releasing Hello and following the success of both the single and the album, the star announced her plans to tour on Thursday (26Nov15) despite having previously told interviewees that she hadn't "made any firm plans".
"Hello it's me, Adele" she said with a laugh in a video. "God, I can't even say that anymore... I have been bluffing this whole time and I'm so relieved to finally tell you that I am, of course, coming on tour and I can't wait to see all of you there so see you all very, very soon!"
The 36-date run of gigs is scheduled to begin at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 29 February (16) and finish in Antwerp, Belgium in June (16), with a four-night stay at London's O2 Arena in March (16).
The shows mark her first tour dates since 2011.
