Adele’s 25 is now on a streaming service – Pandora

Released Nov. 20 through XL/Columbia Records, industry forecasters have projected the album might move close to 2.9 million copies in its first week (the sales-tracking week closes on Thursday).

Sales numbers for the album were helped along by its lack of presence on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.

Her album, which features songs that are different in nature from what some people might have expected of Adele while still having her core vocals, has been receiving near unanimous praise from critic.

To put it into perspective, that Justin Bieber comeback album that the world was waiting for sold roughly 552 thousand copies in its first week – the previous best first-week of 2015. Before Adele’s startling debut, “Purpose” had the highest first-week sales for an album in 2015.

According to abcnews.go.com, Adele has now the record of most albums sold in a week and the week is not yet over.

Swift’s 2012 album, her fourth, was a massive hit, even spending 16 consecutive weeks at Number 1 on the Country Albums chart in the USA, and selling 1,208,000 in its first week.

The album’s smashing success is attributed not just to Adele’s great artistic command, as reflected throughout her album, but also to her instinctive acumen for business.

The singer’s second album has sold more copies in the United States in its first week than any other album in history.

On the Digital Songs chart, which measures online download sales, Adele’s heartbreak ballad “Hello” held onto the top spot with another 327,000 copies sold this week. Labels don’t have a say in this type of licensing; so Adele’s new album, like Taylor Swift’s 1989 past year, still ends up streaming on Pandora. New and less popular artists are still likely to continue to release their albums on streamers, which may not afford them the same profits but act as a massive publicity tool.

The caveat for Pandora is that it’s a radio service rather than a straightforward, on-demand streaming platform.