NEW YORK (AP) – Hello, it’s Adele, and she’s going to give the music industry a much-needed boost this year with “25.”
The singer’s hotly anticipated album is projected to sell over a million units in its debut week after it is released Friday, helping the ailing record business in the final quarter of the year.
“So far the fourth quarter numbers have been pretty tough,” said David Bakula, Nielsen Entertainment’s senior vice president of industry insights.
Bakula noted that Taylor Swift’s “1989,” which was released last October and sold more than 3 million albums in roughly two months last year, helped 2014 close on a strong note.
“We’re down about 20 percent year-over-year because we are going up against that Taylor Swift record with nothing at this point, but once the Adele record comes out, I don’t think there’s anybody that doesn’t doubt that this thing can sell very comparably, if not a little better on a week-over-week basis than Taylor Swift did last year,” he said.