Adele’s 25: Such Great Heights

So, Adele released an album and it has now sold a canny few copies. The end. You didn’t think that you were getting away that easily did you? Gather round for some yuletide sales stats on ‘25’.

Released on 20th November following months of speculation and a teaser on the X Factor, Adele’s third album ‘25’ took ten days to become the fastest million-seller in UK history. It knocked off Oasis’s third album ‘Be Here Now’, which took 17 days to sell a million back in the heady cd shifting hysteria days of 1997.

In the first week of being on-sale, 25 became an absolute juggernaut, out-selling the rest of the Top 200 combined by over 100,000. In the US, Adele also surpassed 3m sales on the 25th November according to BuzzAngle, with sales now rising to over 4m according to Billboard.

Interestingly, 25 is currently not on any streaming sites, with the sole exception of Pandora, which has managed to get around the tactic by playing the ‘non interactive’ card. Essentially, because Pandora is not an on-demand streaming service and is more akin to a traditional radio broadcast, it can stream any song with a US copyright as long as it pays a federally established fee.

25’s lead single ‘Hello’ hasn’t done too shabby either and is on track to becoming Adele’s fourth million selling single according to the sales figures junkies over at Music Week.

So, reassuring proof that in these uncertain times, the British music industry can still deliver a Queen, Oasis, Beatles shaped sales behemoth that eclipses all that proceeded it. Is ‘25’ the exception to every rule or definitive proof that the death of the album and indeed physical sales has been greatly over exaggerated?

On the live front, Adele is also playing her first live dates since 2011, with a UK and mainland Europe arena tour next year and Glastonbury rumours continue to persist. Check out ’25 bonkers facts about 25’s mind blowing first week’ at Music Business Worldwide.