Adele sweeps music charts

By: Kristin Helf, Columnist

Welcome back everyone from a way-too-short Thanksgiving break! I hope you got along fantastically with your extended family over the weekend. And if you didn’t, I hope you had a little cousin to turn on Adele’s “Hello” every time family feuds got out of hand, a la Saturday Night Live. Even your six-year-old cousin and great grandmother have heard “Hello” by now.

According to Nielsen SoundScan, Adele’s album “25” sold 3.38 million copies in the U.S. during its first week on sale. Nielsen has been tracking music sales since 1991, and so far “25” holds the record for the largest single sales week, beating out *NYSNC, whose 2000 album “No Strings Attached” formerly held the title.

To put this in perspective, Taylor Swift’s “1989” sold 1.8 million copies during its first week on sale. Adele’s previous record, “21,” has sold about 11 million copies in the United States—“25” is already over a fourth of the way there.

This new Adele album, from what I’ve heard of it so far, is completely deserving of all the attention and press it and Adele have garnered over the past few weeks. Adele’s album titles coincide with her age, so it’s astonishing that her first album is titled “19.”

I recently overheard a conversation between two people on the bus, discussing the fact that she was only 19 years old—“younger than me!”—when her debut album premiered and turned her into a megastar.

Unfortunately, these girls weren’t praising Adele for her incredible voice and songwriting ability that were, fortunately for Adele, discovered at a young age.

They were instead berating themselves for not yet having accomplished such feats.

“Adele was 21 and had two platinum albums—I’m 21 and working as an unpaid intern!”

Yes, we are poor college students working the poor, menial jobs of such college students.

And yes, there are enormously talented women like Adele to make us feel like failures at this point in our short lives, but just remember: unless   your dream is to become a popstar, you’re on the path to—hopefully—doing whatever it is that will make you successful.

Getting discovered by a talent agent must be nice, but pursuing higher education and holding that associate’s/bachelor’s/master’s degree you worked so hard for must feel even better.

Not to undermine Adele’s success, which at this moment in her career is next to impossible as she’s kicking ass right now, but just because she’s kicking ass in her field doesn’t mean you aren’t.

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