UK NEWS
SUSAN BOYLE'S ALBUM TO GO PLATINUM
Susan Boyle will launch her album I dreamed a dream in New York
By Derek Lambie
BOOKMAKERS have all but stopped taking bets on singing star Susan Boyle selling more than one million copies of her debut album before Christmas.
William Hill is offering odds of just 1/1 that the spinster, from Blackburn, West Lothian, will go platinum in less than four weeks, making the album one of the biggest selling CDs of the decade.
Boyle, 48, will be in New York tomorrow as I Dreamed A Dream is released in shops around the world, turning her into an instant millionairess.
She will go straight to the number one spot in the United States, Canada and the UK, and is expected to remain at the top of the charts until the New Year.
On Friday it emerged that the
The churchgoer’s CD had become the most pre-ordered album of all-time on shopping website Amazon.
However, she has a long way to go to break the record for a debut solo artist, with Britney Spears holding the accolade with 14 million sales of Baby One More Time in 1999.
Rupert Adams, spokesman for William Hill, said experts believe I Dreamed A Dream will likely hold the top-selling album over Christmas, having sold at least one million copies.
He said yesterday: “Susan Boyle is on the way to making history and making Simon Cowell another bucket load of cash.”
Meanwhile, Boyle will appear on The X Factor tonight, having pre-recorded her performance last night because she has to fly to New York this morning to start her whirlwind publicity tour.
She will sing before thousands outside the Rockefeller Centre on the NBC Today show before returning to London to record a Christmas special for ITV.
Last week, in an emotional interview, Boyle told how she was “frightened” at the journey facing her over the next few weeks. And speaking on her official website yesterday, the singer said she had yet to fulfil her dream, despite being on the brink of a record-breaking stint at the top of the charts.
She said: “No one ever completely fulfils their dream. My dream is to make people happy and to go on making people happy for as long as it lasts. So, it’s not really complete yet.”
Boyle was catapulted to stardom following an appearance on Britain’s Got Talent. And her audition in Glasgow is still the single most watched video clip on YouTube with more than 300million hits.
