Adele’s ‘Hello’ sets new records

The anticipation has paid off. Adele’s new single and video, Hello from her forthcoming 25 album, has broken new records. 

While the single stormed to #1 on the iTunes chart in 120 countries, the video smashed the Vevo 24 hour streaming record with 27.7 million views. The previous record was held by Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood with 20.1 million views after its May 17 release.

On the morning of release, Hello had 9 million Spotify streams. 

In America it’s estimated to have sold 450,000 copies in its first two days of release. Its first week sales, ending October 29, will be announced on Monday November 2. 

But already it looks like challenging the current one-week sales record holder, Flo Rida’s Right Round which in February 2009 shifted 636,000 downloads. Adele’s largest sales week for a song was by Rolling In The Deep which moved 353,000 in May 2011. 

The sepia-toned video shot on a farm in Quebec, featuring The Wire actor Tristan Wilds as her on-screen boyfriend in a tale of a love gone bad, is actually about Adele healing her relationship with her one-time estranged father Marc Evans. She reached out when she heard he had bowel cancer and wanted him to meet his grandson. 

Also causing an on-line stir is a home-made mashup of Adele’s Hello with Lionel Richie’s hit of the same name. 

The 25 album is #1 in 93 countries on pre-orders alone. In the excitement over a new Adele release, 2011’s 21 album has shot back up the charts. It is Top 10 in nine countries including the US, UK, Brazil and Russia. 

25 will be released in Australia on Friday November 20 via XL Recordings / Remote Control Records.

1. Hello 

2. Send My Love (To Your New Lover) 

3. I Miss You 

4. When We Were Young 

5. Remedy 

6. Water Under The Bridge 

7. River Lea 

8. Love In The Dark 

9. Million Years Ago 

10. All I Ask 

11. Sweetest Devotion 

Adele told the BBC she was not feeling the weight of expectation. "I feel like every album I’m ever going to write is always going to be following 21," she said. "No matter what this album does, my next record’s going to be following 21. 

"It’s phenomenal what happened with that - but it is a phenomenon. I can’t really include it in any expectations of anything I ever do again."