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Since 2011 Adele Has Been Destroying Her Competition  Despite only releasing three studio albums in a span of 11 years, Adele is already one of the most successful female artists of all time. With her fourth record being allegedly on the works, it’s only a matter of time before the British chanteuse joins the 100 million club.
Adele started career in 2008 with 19, a record that was hugely successful in the Netherlands on top of also doing wonders in her native country, UK. The album was so huge in the Netherlands it ended up becoming the top seller of 2009. That being said, it would take at least another 2-3 years for the British songstress to truly find global success. The release of her blockbuster album, 21, was an immediate success that would dominate the charts for many years to come. It goes without saying that it was by far the best-selling record of 2011, shifting a massive 18.1 million copies. It didn’t stop there, though. The record shifted another 8.3 million in 2012, giving Adele the top seller of the year for another consecutive year. It also pulled huge amounts in 2013 before eventually surpassing the 30 million mark years later. Simply outstanding results.
Many people deemed Adele as a ‘one era wonder’ and argued she’d never replicate that success again, however, the chanteuse returned nearly 5 years later in November 2015, with the fastest selling album ever, 25, further proving her out of this world dominance was far from being over.
Now let’s get into the artist’s sales figures in detail in order to apply this concept and define the act’s true popularity!
Adele’s Album Sales
As already mentioned above, 21‘s sales are just out of this world. There is no need to mention no album did better than 21since several years. In fact, the last albums selling upwards this mark are Celine Dion‘s Let’s Talk About Love and Shania Twain‘s Come On Over, both released in November 1997, with the latter selling the most at over 35 million.
Her debut album, 19, definitely benefited from Adele‘s sophomore effort smashing, as more than half of its sales were registered after her global breakthrough in 2011.
25 was an incredible follow up that further solidified Adele as one of the most powerful artists of all time.
The album is already just under the five albums pack from the early 00s that remain the top selling studio albums of the millennium except Adele‘s own 21, a pack led by Norah Jones‘ classic Jazz record Come Away With Me at nearly 24 million.
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.
Well, if there is one area where Adele hasn’t dominated, that is physical single sales. With the last few consumers giving up the format in the late 00s, and her success being limited by that point, her singles from 19 accumulated low sales in the format. By 2011 most markets had completely stopped releasing such discs. Only Japan still had notable physical single sales, but this country is the only one that pretty much resisted the Adele earthquake. All in all, the few sales here and there amount for 175,000 singles sales from promotional campaigns of 19 and 21 combined. No single of 25 was issued physically.
Skyfall, as a James Bond theme, was issued physically all over the world in large quantities. There are plenty of people collecting such songs. This fact, added to the insane selling skills of the artist, resulted in 350,000 sales, an outstanding number for 2012’s standards.
Digital Songs
21 managed to become one of the highest selling albums of all-time at the peak of download sales. It is fairly impressive since it means the album faced competition from its own stand-alone tracks which were all available for sale.
As a trademark of Adele‘s stunning crossover appeal she did wonders in this format too. Rolling In The Deep is quite simply one of the highest selling digital song ever with 20,6 million sales. This includes 8,65 million downloads in the US, 4,05 million in South Korea, 1,07 million in the UK, and over 1,5 million ringtones, nearly half of which come from the US.
Someone Like You is nearly as strong at 17,35 million while Set the Fire to the Raincompletes an incredible trio at more than 10 million units. Both Rumour Has It and Turning Tables were sent to radios impulsing multi-million sales, while every album cut from 21 tops half a million sales! The total of digital sales for songs of this album total 59,3 million.
Skyfall and Hello, at 7,28 million and 11,27 million respectively, were massive follow ups too. When We Were Young and Send My Love both topped 2 million. While lower, this is still incredible considering the collapse of downloads and the number of units sold by 25 in its first weeks.
Singles from 19 didn’t sell much upon release, but they went on to become huge catalog sellers, especially Make You Feel My Love. This cover of the Bob Dylan track has now become one of her very biggest tracks. Its UK sales have already topped 1 million while the US tally is already on 1,8 million and still climbing.
In total Adele is now at just over 100 million downloads and ringtones.
Streaming
Streaming is made up of audio and video streams. Our CSPC methodology includes both to better reflect the real popularity of each track. The main source of data for each avenue is respectively Spotify and YouTube. To factor in the growing impact of multiple Asian countries where these platforms aren’t always the go-to site for music streaming, more sources have been added.
In order to account for their real popularity in each relevant country, the below sources have been used along with the mentioned ratios that reflect the market share of each area.
Audio Streams
– South Korea : Genie streams * 3.05 (consistent with Gaon streaming numbers) – Japan : AWA streams * 100/5.5 (AWA has 5.5% of the Japanese streaming market) – Elsewhere : Spotify streams * (370 – 8.5 – 9.5 – 33 – 9) / 207 (370 million global subscribers minus 8.5 million from South Korea minus 9.5 million from Japan minus 33 million from China divided by the number of Spotify only users minus 9 million more Asian users) + Genie streams * 3.05 (uses Genie rather than Spotify to extrapolate markets like Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam) Video Streams
– China* : Xiami streams * 125/6.5 (Xiami has just over 5% of the Chinese streaming market) – Elsewhere : Youtube views *since 96.4% of Chinese streaming platforms are free users, that paid-for users pay less than $2 a month and that they are also used as video streaming platforms, their streams are weighted in par with YouTube streams.
Audio Stream value – 1500 plays equal 1 album unit
Video Stream value – 11,750 views equal 1 album unit Equivalent Albums Sales (EAS) = ( Spotify * 310/207 + Genie * 3.05*2 + AWA * 100/5.5 ) / 1500 + ( Xiami * 125/6.5 + YouTube ) / 11750
Top Hits
Streaming results for Adele may not look as impressive as her albums and singles sales. The reason is quite obvious, as each of 21, Skyfall and 25 had their streaming availability delayed to make room for sales while the hype was still high.
In fact, 21 was introduced into Spotify in late June 2012, nearly one year and a half after its release. Still, the enduring appeal of this record accumulated over 3,2 million equivalent album sales thanks to songs like Rolling In The Deep (538 million on Spotify and 2 billion on YouTube) and Someone Like You (603 million and 2,6 billion) remaining everyone’s favorites.
19 registers not one, but two songs inside Adele’s personal Top 10. Songs like Make You Feel My Love (416 million on Spotify and 343 million on YouTube) and Chasing Pavements (nearly 200 million on each Spotify and YouTube) have impressive showings despite not setting the charts on fire, which proves how much of a catalog smash this record has been.
As for 25‘s songs, the three singles were added onto streaming platforms when they were released as singles, while album tracks were introduced in June 2016, more than 7 months after the record came out in November 2015.
Obviously, Hello‘s score is absolutely massive, representing over 1 million equivalent sales alone. The track remains her biggest streaming smash, nearing 1 billion streams on Spotify alone and nearly 3 billion on YouTube. Thanks to huge recurrent streams and a possible new album coming soon, these milestones will be reached within the next few months. 25 displays a massive 3.4 million equivalent album sales.
Total Album (all types) Sales per Country
In spite of being released as recently as in 2011, 21 is already up to 45,2 million albums sales equivalent. This is more than anything Madonna and Mariah Carey ever released. A year ago we reported it was less than 1 million away from Shania Twain‘s Come On Over. As you can guess, it is now ahead.
The next target will then be Celine Dion‘s Let’s Talk About Love which stands at 46,1 million, which should take another year or perhaps even less. In other words, 21 should soon become the second most successful female album ever, with only The Bodyguard by Whitney Houston remaining untouchable for now.
Considering the outstanding machine 21 has been, we tend to forget the rest of her discography. Putting the Orphan Album folder apart, almost exclusively made up of Skyfall, her three albums add for a history-making 28,2 million average.
As for her latest album, 25, the juggernaut continues to grow at fast pace both in sales and on streaming platforms. It already climbed to 26,6 million equivalent album sales, destroying everything released by the likes of Rihanna or Taylor Swift. It is also ahead of historical albums including Like A Prayer and Ray of Light by Madonna, Oops!…I Did It Again by Britney Spears and Back to Black by Amy Winehouse.
The cumulative tally of Adele is up to 86,4 million equivalent album sales, an unbelievable figure for an artist with only 3 albums, who exploded only with with her second release, and with nearly no featuring. Since last year, the British chanteuse has increased by 2.3 million despite her most recent single being released in 2016.
With her new album being reportedly on the way, Adele will surely join the 100 million club sooner than later, alongside the likes of Britney Spears and Mariah Carey, and soon enough, Rihanna. Simply outstanding results
Records & Achievements
https://chartmasters.org/...ngs-sales/
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