The Fab One: Susan Boyle now as successful as the Beatles | Music | The Guardian

Less than two years ago she was, as the Los Angeles Times rather indelicately put it, “just another 47-year-old Scottish virgin”, a wild-haired eccentric whose biggest audience to date had been the congregation of her parish church.

Fast forward 19 months and Susan Boyle has been watched at least 400 million times on YouTube, appeared on Oprah and even sung for the pope (sort of: he made a break for the popemobile before she really got going at Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park this September).

To that list of achievements we can now add being as popular as the Beatles. Unlike numerous overhyped musicians over the years, Boyle has never claimed to want to be as big as McCartney and co – she fancied herself as the new Elaine Page.

But she has managed it anyway, by having the No 1 album in the US and UK at the same time for the second time in a year. Only the Monkees and the Beatles have managed the same feat, in 1967 and 1969 respectively. Boyle is the first ever woman to do it, her record company, Sony, said.

Her album The Gift reached No 1 in the UK on Sunday, and took the top spot across the Atlantic today. It comes after her debut album I Dreamed a Dream achieved the same success following its release last year.

Reacting to the news, Boyle said: “I’ve never felt happier in all my life. This is an amazing result and one I never expected.”

Boyle was catapulted from obscurity to global stardom after appearing on last year’s Britain’s Got Talent contest. The singer, from Blackburn in West Lothian, became an international star after her performance of I Dreamed a Dream from the musical Les Misérables stunned the audience and judges on the ITV1 show.

Britain’s Got Talent judge Simon Cowell said: “I’m thrilled for Susan. She has once again defied the odds. She is my superwoman.”

The star – who still lives with her cat, Pebbles, in Blackburn – suffered a series of problems as she buckled under the pressure of becoming a worldwide phenomenon. But it didn’t hurt record sales. In 2009 I Dreamed a Dream became the fastest-selling debut album in the history of the charts and – with more than 10m copies sold – the biggest-selling album in the world in the last year.

Boyle’s reign at the top of the UK album charts will be brief, however. Take That’s new album, Progress, came out on Monday and, after selling 235,000 copies on the day of release, seems certain to topple her from the top spot.

The Fab One: Susan Boyle now as successful as the Beatles | Music | The Guardian.