Susan Boyle tops U.S. chart with the quickest selling album this year

By Ben Todd
Updated: 19:34 EST, 2 December 2009

Susan Boyle rocketed straight to No1 in the U.S. charts yesterday after her debut album sold more in its first week in America than any other record this year.

The 48-year- old Scottish spinster ( pictured) outdid the previous fastest-selling album of 2009 - Relapse by rapper Eminem - by almost 100,000 copies.

Miss Boyle's album, I Dreamed A Dream, sold 701,000 copies in its first week of release in the U.S. and is expected to become a million-seller by the end of its second week.

Susan Boyle

Chart-topper: Susan Boyle shows off her album outside her home in Blackburn, Scotland

No debut album by a woman has sold more in its first week since the present U.S. chart system was introduced in 1991. The only debut record to sell more in the first week was Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle, which sold 803,000 copies in 1993.

Miss Boyle's big break into the U.S. market - which has proved a graveyard for many British pop stars with international ambitions - comes after she broke the record for the fastest-selling debut in the UK.

She has also hit the No1 spot in Australia, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand and has sold almost three million copies of her album worldwide since its release last week.

Miss Boyle, from Blackburn, West Lothian, who became a singing sensation through her appearances on the Britain's Got Talent TV show, is now back in Scotland after her promotional trip across the Atlantic last week.

Her mentor and Britain's Got Talent judge Simon Cowell said: 'I'm incredibly proud of Susan.

'This success couldn't have happened to a more deserving person. Susan Boyle quite simply has broken the rules.

'Her story is like a Hollywood movie, but this time it's real life and a really talented, nice lady who has won.'

Miss Boyle's album includes her signature covers I Dreamed A Dream and Cry Me A River, as well as versions of the Rolling Stones's Wild Horses, the Monkees' Daydream Believer and the hymns How Great Thou Art and Amazing Grace.

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