Adele in 2015 broke NSYNC's 15 year old record with her 3.4M debut of 25 - it ended up selling 7M pure sales in the span of 5 weeks and was the biggest album seller of 2015 and 2016 and would go on to cross 22M pure sales worldwide. 

 

She had 2 variants - the OG and a Target exclusive

 

 

10 years later, Taylor is on track to break Adele's "25" record with "Life of a Showgirl" - it is projected to sell between 3.5M to 4M in its debut week.

 

As per Grok: there are 24 current variants and limited 24 hour editions to induce panic buying.

 

 

 

 

Which one is more impressive in your eyes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by naval23

Adele times infinity 

Adele's record is unbeatable 

 

well  what do you think?

Obviously the one with a bigger debut at a much more dead music market 

The one with sustained MULTIPLE million+ global (and even USA-only for a few) selling week

Taylor did it with a worse album so hers. 

Oops!... I Did It Again record with no variants.

 

 

...Vin

Why are two variants missing those drawn in check marks?

 

Mario's best girlfriend of course is super fast to reply...

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by TeamThiem

Taylor is so lame with all these variants. She really knows how to milk the hell out of her fans.

I still say I doubt there are enough people buying multiple variants to sway the final numbers drastically. Regardless, a sale is a sale. Pop acts have always had a certain number of fans buying multiple copies of an album during release week. At least with Taylor, you're not buying the exact same thing. 

Not Taylena typing for the last 15 minutes omg

 

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by naval23

Both are extremely impressive and neither should be diminished.

 

No one thought the NSYNC record would ever be beaten, just like how no one thought Adele's record would. 

Utada is more impressive cuz she sold over 2 million first week, and 5 Million in the first month. No gimmicks, pure CD physical album sales. And she was only 16. Also write everything and co-produced it. 

 

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by Gorjesspazze9

Taylor's doing it in a dead music market so her. 

Adele is boring. Taylor is dynamic and ever changing. She's also hotter and is a better singer. She deserves this record

The answer to your question is the album that came out mid streaming era, after articles declared the era of million seller blockbuster debuts were over. 
 

Oh wait, there were 4 of those. And one of which is breaking the all time record. 

Adele because it was the GP not rabid fans mass buying. I mean it's always impressive to have a strong, large, and dedicated fan base. Not everyone has that and that's how artist make their living, but sometimes it just more shows how easily people want to be a part of something, rather than the artist's talent.

one thing for sure. adele's record is dust

Taylor's record, of course, no one, absolutely no one, sells those numbers these days in the music industry. Added to this is the fact that anyone can listen to the album for free on streaming platforms, and yet they still choose to buy the physical album. Each of the CDs, vinyls, and cassettes are unique pieces created by Taylor that increase the value of the physical purchase. The music industry does this like no one else 

As for the variants, all music artists use them, but none, absolutely none, sell them like Taylor does.

 

Stop dismissing the unstoppable power of the music industry. Hopefully, one of your favorite artists will achieve what Taylor Swift has. 

Also, let's be clear that Adele is not your favorite artist. You have Lady Gaga, Ariana, Dua Lipa, Xtina, Beyoncé, etc., and none of them have done this... except Britney Spears, the princess of pop.

 

 

 

The one that sells more, that's how records work 

 

10 minutes ago, Swiftienator13 said:

Adele is boring. Taylor is dynamic and ever changing. She's also hotter and is a better singer. She deserves this record

In real life, the answer is the one with the higher number in the significantly weaker market for pure sales and first weeks.

 

Let's not forget the industry thought numbers that will end up being a less than a third, maybe even a fourth of Showgirl's first week were literally impossible to achieve anymore: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2021/12/03/the-era-of-albums-debuting-with-one-million-copies-is-officially-over/

 

No matter how much people want to pretend this is largely a result of mass buying, there's been generally no evidence published to suggest the average Taylor fan buys physical media any more than average consumers. This is purely unprecedented commercial power.

Adele because unlike both NSYNC and Taylor, hers was not fanbase driven. It was genuine anticipation after the biggest album this century and one of the biggest singles this century.

 

Not only did 25 Sell 3.4M copies first week, but it also sold over 1M copies in two other weeks that year. Absolutely monstrous and unheard of success.

 

Additionally, Hello is the only song in history (I believe) to sell over 1M copies in a single week. 2015 Adele was just absolutely untouchable. Every single person was awaiting her follow up to 21. It was something I'll never forget. Even the simple "hello... its me" TV spot left people shook. Her carpool karaoke is the most viewed with like 270M views  The fact that she was pulling this off WITHOUT a cultish fanbase was wild.

 

Now we have Taylor about to break that record with this SHEIN level fast fashion-esque music where she pumps out 100 variants to secure sales solely because she wants records. It's just disingenuous and quantity over quality. Is it impressive she has a bunch of brain dead fans that buy millions of albums before hearing anything just to blindly support a billionaire they like to infantilize? Absolutely. Her marketing power is phenomenal. But is it more impressive than selling based off solely the hype and music and not shenanigans? No.

 

Remove the vinyl variants, limited availability, and discount digital variants she always adds in the middle of tracking weeks, and her sales are still monstrous, but not record breaking.

 

Taylor fans can quote me all they want, reality is, if Taylor didn't need to do all the shenanigans to achieve her albums sales, she wouldn't do them. But there is nothing more important to her than success and money and it's unfortunate that her fans cosign this obsession by vicariously living through them instead of calling it out themselves as the ones being scammed.

Edited October 7, 2025Oct 7 by Gaia

Pure sales are dead but yet Taylor still manage to do those #s, so Taylor!