Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 09/23/2011 at 3:17 PM News

The Popdust Files: 21, adele, sales

Wow. It’s impressive when anyone sells just about anything these days, regardless of their popular stature or previous commercial achievements. If someone had told you before the year started that there would be an artist to sell ten million copies of their album worldwide this year, would Adele have been one of your first 100 guesses? 500? Yet, here we are. ThatGrapeJuice.net is reporting that with the 276,000 copies that Adele’s 21 sold this week, it has now officially gone over the 10,000,000 mark worldwide, currently resting at somewhere in the 10.15 million range. (At least three of those millions come from the US, where the album has gone triple platinum.)

One more accomplishment for what is become a historical breakout year for the UK songstress. Two #1 singles, more covers than you could shake several piles of sticks at, and now an eight-digit sales posting worldwide. And we haven’t even gotten to the Grammys yet! The world may never recover from the reckoning.