In sports, the cliché is that 'records are made to be broken'. One could guess the same applies to the entertainment world. Korean rapper Psy's international hit, "Gangnam Style", was the trend-setter and held all sorts of YouTube records, including the fastest to 1 billion page views. But this record apparently stood out a little too conspicuously, just asking the universe to break it, and so, Adele did. The English songstress recently claimed the new record on YouTube, as her new single, "Hello", displaced Psy's "Gangnam Style" as the fastest to 1 billion pageviews.
While "Gangnam Style" remains the most viewed video ever, Adele's video for her new song "Hello" not only shattered Psy's record of fastest to a billion, she decimated it. According to KPopstarz, "On Thursday, the streaming service announced that Adele's "Hello" broke Psy's record for the fastest song to achieve 1 billion views. Psy's "Gangnam Style" took 158 days to reach the milestone, whereas "Hello" hit the landmark in just 87 days." Both Adele and Psy have two videos each in the top 30 most viewed videos on YouTube.
For Adele, it's just par for the course. Released on October 23 of last year, "Hello" was the fastest single to sell a million copies. According to the Entertainment Tonight web site, her new album, 25, has been doing its part sales-wise, as well—quote, "The singer's new album, 25, has sold more than 4.2 million copies in the U.S. and, according to Billboard, is officially the first album to ever sell one million copies two weeks in a row. And she did it all without streaming or a Beyoncé duet."
The laundry list of accomplishments for the album and Adele just doesn't end there. Here are others, courtesy of Entertainment Tonight -
"20th Album to Sell 1 Million Copies in a Week: While not necessarily a record, it is a pretty cool club to be in. Adele joins the likes of Lady Gaga (Born This Way and The Beatles (1 as the 20th record to sell one million copies in one week, since Nielsen Music began tracking music sales in 1991.
First Album to Sell More Than 3 Million Copies in a Week: Then 25 went on to become the second album to ever pass two million copies sold in a single week -- after *NSYNC's No Strings Attached -- and the first to sell more than three million in a week.
Most Records Sold in a Single Week: With 3.38 million copies sold in the U.S. in the first week, Adele beat *NSYNC's previous single-week sales record from 2000 by nearly a million copies. Oh, and she did it in just three days."
