Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' Goes Platinum
Sales for the album wildly exceed estimates.
June 1, 2011— -- Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" has sold 1.1 million copies since it was released last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's only the 17th album to sell a million copies in a week since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.
Sales for the album wildly exceeded Universal Music Group's estimates of 400,000, and with more than 662,000 units sold, broke digital sales records, getting a big boost from Amazon.com's risky strategy of selling digital downloads for 99 cents. The online retailer reported 440,000 in digital sales -- a demand so high it almost overwhelmed the company's online server.
Lady Gaga's album is a bright spot for the fledgling music industry, selling more copies in any first week since 50 Cent's "The Massacre" sold 1.14 million in March 2005. Her debut single, "Born This Way," moved 1 million digital downloads in five days.
Only the fifth woman to sell more than 1 million albums in a week, Lady Gaga joins the ranks of Britney Spears ("Oops! I Did It Again": 1.319M), Whitney Houston ("The Bodyguard": 1.041M), Norah Jones ("Feels Like Home": 1.022M) and Taylor Swift ("Speak Now": 1.047M).
