Adele album a gift to music industry

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This article was published 20/11/2015 (3957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK — Hello, it’s Adele, and she’s going to give the music industry a much-needed boost this year with 25.

The singer’s hotly anticipated album is projected to sell over a million units in its debut week after its release today — in just three weeks, the single Hello has sold 2.2 million tracks — helping the ailing record business in the final quarter of the year.

“So far the fourth-quarter numbers have been pretty tough,” said David Bakula, Nielsen Entertainment’s senior vice-president of industry insights.

Bakula noted that Taylor Swift’s 1989, which was released last October and sold more than three million albums in roughly two months last year, helped 2014 close on a strong note.

“We’re down about 20 per cent year-over-year because we are going up against that Taylor Swift record with nothing at this point, but once the Adele record comes out, I don’t think there’s anybody that doesn’t doubt that this thing can sell very comparably, if not a little better on a week-over-week basis than Taylor Swift did last year,” he said.

Some insiders are predicting 25 will sell 1.5 million units in its first week. And the album will easily become the top-selling release of 2015 (so far that title goes to 1989, which has sold 1.7 million units this year, and overall has moved 5.4 million albums).

Part of the anticipated sales may come from the fact 25 will not be available on Spotify’s streaming platform when it is released Friday.

Pulling the anticipated album from the streaming site will force listeners to buy the album digitally and at stores, driving its sales. It was unclear if Adele’s album would appear on Spotify in the future. A representative for the singer declined comment.

Adele’s 25 is the followup to 2011’s 21, which has sold 11.23 million albums in the United States. As the anticipation builds for the British singer’s new album, 21 and her 2008’s debut, 19, are currently No. 24 and 66 on Billboard’s 200 albums chart, respectively.

“Her manager played me a couple of songs and it’s very exciting to hear something of that quality doing that well. And at the same time, it’s concerning that there aren’t many more things of that quality,” Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine said in an interview. “She came in and did something pure, simple and just plain ol’ great, and that works. There’s a lot of great artists in the world right now, but she set the bar as far as quality and commerciality.”

Iovine added that part of Adele’s success is because her sound is unique among those heavily played on the radio.

“A lot of people conform their records to fit a radio format because they’re afraid they won’t get played. This girl came in and just said, ‘I’m doing something great,’ ” he said.

It’s as if there isn’t a format Adele doesn’t qualify for: She appeals to those millions and millions of fans who have bought Susan Boyle and Michael Bublé albums, but she also shares the same fans as Kanye West, One Direction and the Black Keys. And her songs have appeared on just about every Billboard chart, from adult contemporary to R&B to dance. She hasn’t sung in Spanish, but she’s appeared on the Latin pop charts.

Nielsen’s Bakula says 25 will get atypical music fans to stores and online to buy music, driving sales for Adele’s albums and others.

“This is bringing people out that don’t typically buy music, and when you put that in the fourth quarter, a gift-giving time… I think you’re just going to multiply (album sales),” he said.

— The Associated Press