“When she writes a song,” he says, “it doesn’t sound like songwriting by a committee. But most of all, says Tedder, who also co-wrote the ballad “Remedy” on 25, Adele’s appeal is her authenticity. “You have a voice that’s been trained on the greatest singers of all time.” That voice is a mighty instrument, clean and muscular. “She studied Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole-all the old greats,” says Ryan Tedder, lead singer of the pop-rock outfit OneRepublic, who wrote two singles with Adele on 21. On 25, as on her previous releases, she cements her reputation as pop’s oldest soul with songs that are intimate and simple. Her music is dignified, even stately, cutting across demographics. In a stunted pop economy in which her contemporaries try to sound simultaneously like each other and like what might be trending next, Adele does the opposite: she sounds like the past. Says Keith Caulfield, co-director of charts at Billboard, which tallies music sales: “She’s a unicorn.” Even compared with 2014’s biggest blockbuster-Taylor Swift’s 1989, which sold less than half as many copies during its debut week-that isn’t hyperbole.Īdele, of course, is more than a set of stratospheric numbers. Still, Adele’s return to the spotlight is unlike anything the music industry has ever seen. It stood to reason that she’d do good business. The lead single on 25, “Hello,” also shattered records: its music video was viewed at a rate of 1.6 million times per hour on YouTube. Her last album, 21, was the best-selling record of 2011 and ’12, racking up a staggering 30 million copies worldwide. This is a little disingenuous, but only a little. Americans are obsessed with the royal family.”
“Maybe they think I’m related to the Queen. I’m not even from America.” The 27-year-old sets down her cup of tea, brightening. Reclined on the floor of her hotel room a few days after the concert, she says she has “no idea” why she’s sold so many records. Then another.Īdele can’t account for how she pulled off the seemingly impossible. Then sales passed another million the following week. But by the first week’s end, Adele had sold 3.38 million copies of 25, making it the biggest sales week in history. The last time that happened was in 2000, when ’N Sync’s blockbuster No Strings Attached sold 2.42 million copies-albeit long before streaming services obviated the need to buy albums. Selling 2 million units would be miraculous. Prognosticators anticipated that 25 might sell a million copies in its first week, an extraordinary figure in an anemic music industry that has seen physical record sales wither. Judging by Adele’s commercial success, at least, this is less opinion than fact.
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