Adele says hello to full-streaming, how many records will 25 break?

After the physical version of Adele’s third album 25 set new sales records around the world (20 million currently), it now looks like it’s changing the goalposts on streaming services.

Seven months after its release, 25 became available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Google Play Music and Amazon Prime Music at midnight Friday June 23. Australia and New Zealand were the two countries to power on.

The streaming of the full album came on the same weekend when Adele floored the audience at the Glastonbury festival in the UK with a flawless headline performance, and 25 seems set to hit the 3 million mark in her home country UK.

25’s minimal foray into streaming generated impressive figures. 

Pandora, which circumvent Adele’s ban on streaming through radio airplay, reported that 25 has been streamed over 550 million times. Of the singles, Hello had 292 million and When We Were Young 76 million.

Spotify revealed to TMN that the singer has 19 million monthly listeners on the service. Hello is its 11^th most streamed track of all time, with 536 million plays. Also doing well on the service are Rolling In The Deep (249 million), Someone Like You (217 million), Make You Feel My Love (129 million) and Set Fire To The Rain (121 million).

Adele took a stance against streaming the entire album because, she told Time magazine in December 2015, she considered it “a bit disposable” of a way to listen to music. Music should be an event. I know that streaming music is the future, but it’s not the only way to consume music. I can’t pledge allegiance to something that I don’t know how I feel about yet.”

However the earlier 19 and 21 have long been available for streaming. But 21 was also withheld for some months after its physical release.

Adele’s core fans are mothers between the age of 25 and 44 and who obviously still buy records.

The question is, with 20 million sales already sold physically, will there be much more streaming revenue to be made by 25? The answer is a definite yes.

Adele’s 90-minute Glastonbury set at the Pyramid Stage, warm and emotional, drew a crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see. There had been moans from some long-time Glastonbury veterans when she was first announced to headline, saying she was “too boring”. She took it in her stride: she earthily told the detractors they were going to “get dragged” to the festival by their wives “so just deal with it.”

She opened with a note-perfect rendition of Hello. She changed one of the lines from “I’m in California dreaming” to "I’m in Glastonbury dreaming" to a roar of approval, admitting, "Glastonbury means the world to me, I’m not even lying. I’ve always wanted to do this my whole life but I’ve been too scared."

She pulled a young girl up from the crowd for a selfie, dedicated Make You Feel My Love to her grandfather, declared “Happy (gay) pride!”, dropped the f-bomb liberally, asked the audience if any of them had a “piss or shit” before she came on, and at least one couple got engaged during her set.

Unlike other acts who used their Glastonbury sets to comment on the European Union, Adele only brought it up during a segment of the show. She’d ask the crowd which towns they were from. Some places like Coventry and Stoke-On-Trent were good-naturedly booed.

“I’ll have no fucking booing at my show," she snapped. "After what went on the other day, are you mad?"

At the end of the set, she admitted that due to her stage nerves, "I didn’t want to come on and now I don’t want to go off. I have never been so moved by anything in my life... This is, by far, the best moment of my life so far."

The US leg of her world tour begins on July 5.