Adele's '25': How huge will it be?
To stream or not to stream?
That's Adele's big conundrum ahead of the release of her hotly anticipated new album, 25.
25, due on Nov. 20, marks Adele's first album in almost five years, and the question isn't if the release will be big – it's exactly how big it will be.
In 2011, Adele's icon-status-cementing album 21 sold 11.2 million copies, according to Nielsen Music, whopping sales figures that simply don't exist in the music industry anymore. Only Taylor Swift is remotely comparable in today's marketplace, having sold 5.4 million copies of 1989.
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There's a stark reason why Swift won so many hard sales in today's tough climate: She pulled her music entirely off streaming sites like Spotify, arguing they don't pay artists enough.
What will Adele do? "Adele, like a Taylor Swift, is different from everyone else. She's in her own orbit, basically," says Keith Caulfield, Billboard's co-director of charts. "She's a superstar. Her last album sold 11 million albums in America, which is nuts."
Unlike Swift, Adele, 27, has the benefit of appealing to a wide range of ages and formats. "A lot of her following is older than Taylor Swift's, and they are people who will buy a CD or download a record," says Anthony DeCurtis, contributing editor for Rolling Stone, calling Adele a potent mix of pop star and chanteuse with classic rock appeal.
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Adele's team had no comment whether or not she will stream 25, which will drop into holiday shoppers' laps right before Black Friday. But, "if it is streamed it should blow streaming records out of the water," predicts Alan Light, former editor-in-chief of Vibe and Spin.
The hustle has begun: Adele released 25's first single, Hello, on Oct. 23, and simultaneously began an impressive media rollout that included the cover of i-D magazine, an expansive radio tour and confirmation she'll perform on SNL Nov. 21 with Matthew McConaughey as host.
Hello is already dominating radio, and according to Billboard, is on track to have the best sales week ever for a digital download song in the U.S. (The current record was set by Flo Rida's Right Round in 2009.)
"It's off to a great start, considering that it's a five-minute ballad and five-minute ballads are not what pop radio does these days," says Sean Ross, author of the Ross On Radio newsletter.
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It doesn't hurt that Adele's fans have been chomping at the bit for this album for years, stalled first because of Adele's vocal cord surgery, and then her pregnancy with son Angelo, now 3.
"I was struggling to write my record, so it all slowed down," she told BBC Radio 2. "Obviously, I took a bit of time off because I became a mum. Then when I thought I was ready to start writing I wasn't. So I took some more time off. And then I was ready. So a couple of times I thought I'd dried up."
The video for Hello, posted Friday, currently has over 93 million views on YouTube, and smashed Taylor Swift's Bad Blood record of most views in 24 hours out the gate (Bad Blood had 20.1 million views, Hello earned 23.2 million).
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So what will the release plan be? Adele's team may not even know yet.
"I'm sure they have been offered piles of money for a streaming exclusive or a promotional sponsorship for a first release, that's the world that we live in," says Light. "I'm sure they're still weighing those choices now."
Either way, "all signs are, it's going to be huge," Caulfield says.