I Dreamed a Dream is the debut album from Scottish singer Susan Boyle. It was released on 23 November 2009 by Syco Music in the UK, and by Columbia Records in the US one day later. In the standard edition, 11 out of the 12 songs that appear on the album are cover songs, with "Who I Was Born To Be" being the only original composition.
The album entered the UK album chart at no.1 and remained at the top for four weeks. It was confirmed as the fastest selling UK debut album of all time (and the fourth fastest selling album of all) selling 411,820 copies, beating the previous fastest selling debut album of all time, Spirit by Leona Lewis. It also outsold the rest of the top 5 albums combined during its first week on sale, and became the biggest selling album in the UK in 2009. I Dreamed a Dream debuted at #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 with 701,000 copies sold in its first week, breaking the record for the highest debut ever for a new solo female artist in the SoundScan era (post 1991). I Dreamed a Dream became the biggest opening sales week of 2009 in the United States, beating out Eminem's Relapse which sold 608,000. It was the second biggest-selling album of 2009 in the United States, with 3.1 million copies sold, behind Taylor Swift's Fearless which sold 3.2 million copies (although Swift's album was actually released in 2008). In only six weeks of sales, it became the biggest selling album in the world for 2009.