Week in Culture

Not that we all didn’t see it coming, but Susan Boyle’s record debut, I Dreamed a Dream, is selling a tremendous number of copies and has landed at No. 1 on the charts, topping Andrea Bocelli’s Christmas album, Adam Lambert’s debut, and Rihanna’s latest. And it hasn’t just sold, it’s sold record numbers—Boyle moved 701,000 copies this week, the biggest first week of any album this year; and as it is already December, she is looking to hold the title for good. It just goes to show that the world cannot get enough of the Pygmalion story—a frumpy spinster from the U.K. can be a star with a little polish and an inspirational tale. It works for the older generations, anyway—a large proportion of the Britain’s Got Talent star’s sales came in CD form, a rarity in an age of iTunes. This can only mean one thing: Boyle’s fanbase is more analog than digital.