Susan Boyle Is the New Eminem
And so the 2009 Taylor Swift Memorial Award for single-handedly saving the record industry goes to Susan Boyle, who last week sold north of 700,000 copies of her debut, I Dreamed a Dream. Boyle easily racked up the year's best sales week and the runner-up, Eminem's 600K-selling Relapse, ain't even that close. That's a fucking smash right there--Billboard notes that "in SoundScan's tracking history, only one other debut album has seen a bigger opening week," Snoop's Doggystyle, which came out in the decidedly pre-internet year of 1993, when it sold 803,000 records. She is surely the most successful musico-digital meme of all time, although Vulture points out that paradoxically, her oldness may have in the end saved her, seeing as the fans she eventually garnered presumably have no idea what Rapidshare is. Not so with Eminem. Rounding out the top five? 
The ubiquitous Andrea Bocelli cash-generator My Christmas (218,000), Adam Lambert's simulated-fellatio-and-scandal-aided For Your Entertainment debut (198,000), Rihanna's much-awaited Rated R (at 181,000, her best single sales week ever), and something called The Fame Monster, by Lady Gaga (174,000)-- her already-out debut, The Fame, also creeped all the way back up to #6 and 151,000 copies sold, just for good measure. Year-to-date sales are at this point down 13% compared last year; without Ms. Boyle, this all would've been a lot worse. Follow your dreams, 48-year-old Scottish women! [Billboard]
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