On Saturday I wrote this article about the Susan Boyle phenomenon and how it shows how superficial the average CD buyer is.

Now that the album sales numbers are in (and they’re even higher than people projected they’d be) I thought a good way to showcase the ridiculousness of it all would be to show how many great albums have already been outsold by Susan Boyle’s debut in just one week (it sold over 700,000 copies in the US and over 400,000 copies in the UK.)

The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin (1999)

Considered by many to be one of the best albums of the 1990s (including myself) – Susan Boyle’s debut has now sold more copies in one week than The Soft Bulletin has sold in 10 years (it has still yet to be certified Gold in the US & Gold means 500K copies sold.) I could also add every other Lips album except for Yoshimi to this list. Yoshimi has been certified Gold in the US although I don’t know if it’s actually sold 700K copies or not, it’s hard to get that kind of info. Anyway, it may take Susan two weeks instead of one to outsell that most commercial friendly of Flaming Lips albums.

The Olivia Tremor Control – Dusk at Cubist Castle (1996)

A criminally underrated band, they don’t have any Gold albums and they’ve never even charted on the Billboard 200 so this is an easy call.

Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1996)

According to a 2005 Billboard article, this album had sold just 141,000 copies up to 2005. In other words Susan Boyle sold about five times as many copies as In the Aeroplane Over the Sea sold in about 10 years in just one week.

My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

As of 2003, Loveless had sold only 225,000 copies in the US according to Rolling Stone.

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (1968)

Apparently at only around 500,000 sales in the US after over 40 years. It took Susan Boyle just one week to sell more copies than Astral Weeks has sold in over 40 years.

Stevie Wonder – Innervisions (1973)

Under 500,000 according to Rolling Stone in 2003. This is a brilliant album by the way, check it out.

The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

At just 311,000 as of 2003. Ms. Boyle more than doubled that total already.

Ramones – Ramones (1976)

Also listed as under 500,000 by Rolling Stone. Susan Boyle’s debut album has sold more copies than the Ramones debut album sold in 33 years in just one week.

I could list a lot more great albums here, but I’m beginning to get a bit sad, so I’ll stop now.

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