Boyle
- Vigil Sunday in Upper Darby for boys injured by car
- 'Everyday art' with a love of color
- Wine theft mystery is a Gallic treat
- Holiday wonders at Headhouse Square
- Thanksgiving Day parades draw thousands to celebrate
- Irish bishops covered up child abuse, study says
- Basil D. Nutter Jr., Mayor Nutter's father, 75
- China says it will cut carbon up to 45% by 2020
- One family's parade ritual of a heckling-hilarity kind
- Interest stirred by commercial-grade composting
- Historic Fairmount homes dressed for holidays
- At North-Frankford game, lots of memories
- If you and your walls are fearless, try black
- Health bills would raise taxes before changes start
- Nutter needs to figure how to get Dad Vail back
- Battered brokerages turn to 'wealth management'
- Censing ocean creatures
- Glitch kicks London exchange offline
- Let the sales begin! Extended hours on Black Friday, this weekend
- To some, Black Friday means 'Buy Nothing Day'
- House sales going up, but it's going to be a bumpy ride
- Research group warns of harmful toys
- The rewards of adopting older kids
- Retailers have high hopes for Web shopping
- Alice in museumland: 2 exhibits offer fresh looks at Carroll's masterpiece
- Martha Stewart: Down-to-earth tips on in-the-air travel
- Joe Sixpack: Beer, parties & pants: It's the holidays!
- Iran grabs Nobel Prize, freezes $ of dissident
- Doc defends 'coma' recovery
RELATED STORIES
Susan Boyle on track for biggest debut of 2009
U.S. music retailers say they are realizing Susan Boyle's dreams, as her album "I Dreamed A Dream" is blowing up way beyond sales expectations.
Label and distribution executives, meanwhile, project that based on early sales returns at the big-box stores and pre-orders at direct marketers like Amazon.com and QVC, Boyle's album is in contention to beat this year's top debut-week seller, Eminem's "Relapse." That title scanned 608,000 units in the week ending May 24, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That week also represents the best overall sales week for an album this year.
Meanwhile, Adam Lambert's "For Your Entertainment" is also outperforming sales expectations, despite - or perhaps because of - the risque performance he turned in at the American Music Awards on Sunday. Label and distribution sources project that "For Your Entertainment" could sell about 225,000 units in its first week.
Likewise, Lady Gaga and her three-pronged sales attack on consumers' purses is also much stronger than expected. Of the new "The Fame Monster" deluxe edition, "The Fame" original version, and "The Fame Monster" EP, also just issued, the former two combined could sell about 150,000 units while the EP is expected to top 200,000 units.
Of course, all estimates come with the caveat that sales projection models are built around a Tuesday release date, while this week new releases came out a day early on Monday, due to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
While distribution projections for Boyle's album start at the 550,000 mark, some executives are reluctant to guess how high it will go. If Sony can keep product rolling and if big boxes "have stock on Black Friday [today], who knows how well the album can do," said one veteran prognosticator, who thinks the Boyle album will sell at least 700,000 copies this week.
QVC reports that it had pre-orders of more than 81,000 units for the Boyle album, its best sales performance in 10 years, while Amazon says the album has generated its largest global pre-order in its history. Amazon.com doesn't disclose numbers, but sources say its U.S. pre-order alone reached 80,000 units.
New disc for Sade in 2010
Sade, the "quiet storm" R&B group featuring vocalist Sade Adu, has completed its long-awaited sixth studio album. "Soldier of Love," the band's first collection of new material since 2000's "Lover's Rock" will be released Feb. 8 on Epic.
Sade and her longtime bandmates, including Stuart Matthewman, aka Cottonbelly, regrouped in a U.K. recording studio in June and were recording and mixing into October.
Though no details about Sade's new music have been revealed, one artist heard early versions of several songs: Maxwell, a fellow Sony recording artist and longtime friend and collaborator with Matthewman.
The R&B singer sent a message to fans in March via his private Facebook page saying: "Trust me, it's so monolithic it'll shake you in your shoes!"
