Team RotD ponder what has enabled Adele’s 25 to surpass all expectations for success, and what lessons can other artists and labels take away?

27 November 2015 - Press release

The short-term sales success of Adele’s 25 has surely gone beyond all expectations. In the US, 25 is on-course to sell around 3m album in the first week, easily beating the 2.4m first-week tally achieved by *NSYNC at the height of the CD market’s boom period. Furthermore, 25 is expected to have accounted for around 42% of all US music sales in its first week.

In the UK 25, with sales to Thursday of 737k, has already beaten the 696k first-week sales record set by Oasis’ Be Here Now (albeit with those Oasis sales having been achieved over a shortened three day first-week period). 25 has been outselling the rest of the top 200 albums combined in the UK over the last week, whilst it looks certain to achieve a sales tally which is all but unheard of in 2015.

There’s no doubt that the huge first week sales will have been boosted by the non-availability of 25 on streaming services. XL/Adele’s decision to withhold the album from streaming services has been thoroughly vindicated, at least if the primary goal of this no-streaming strategy was to support sales of CDs and downloads. 

Pursuing this windowing strategy has helped support sales, whilst also fostering a feeling of scarcity around the release which can be hard to achieve in the modern age. We will never know what the sales tally would have been if the album were to have been on streaming services, but it’s highly unlikely to have been anywhere near as high. Those that wanted the album had to buy it, simple as that. This achieved something much more significant than simply propping up sales however, it fostered a feeling of engaged fandom, of cultural impact, ensuring that those who did buy the album feel like they have invested both in the record and in Adele herself. Making fans engage with the album format also means that buyers are likely to return to 25 again and again, rather than sampling and quickly clicking on to next browse option, as often happens on streaming service.

The no-streaming strategy appears to have paid dividends. One might question whether that naturally carries over to developed streaming markets like those in Scandinavia, for instance. With the CD market being almost non-existent in those countries in 2015, and downloads also having been historically weak there, XL’s strategy could have resulted in a large number of fans who simply didn’t engage. 25 may be No.1 on iTunes Sweden at the time of writing, but we’d love to know how many sales that represents. 

We read some suggestions that XL should have chosen not to restrict the album from streaming in those highly-developed streaming markets. This would, however, have presented a confused picture which would certainly have come at a higher cost globally than with the danger of some potentially lost revenue in Scandinavia. What’s been remarkable to us looking around online is how little outrage there seems to have been from fans at the album not being available on streaming services. Where we have seen complaint, it’s mostly been from people within the industry. The wider fan community seems to have been generally understanding of the strategy. It can’t have been welcomed by the streaming services themselves. However, they have stuck fast to their decision not to allow premium only content and they will have to live by it. We also wonder, even if Spotify had allowed Adele to release on its Premium tier, whether this would have worked any better for her and XL. It’s hard to view this release strategy as anything other than a resounding success. It may not be a strategy that would make sense for almost any other artist, but for Adele it has worked.

How has Adele apparently been able to keep fans on-side over the streaming hold-out, despite employing the kind of tactics that might result in internet outrage, if employed by artists? Perhaps this mirrors the wider question of why is Adele just so damn popular?

Team RotD have been musing the subject of Adele’s massive appeal at length this week and have come up with our own (sometimes-conflicting) opinions. On the marketing side, she has it easy at this point in her career. She has the widest possible appeal. She appeals to all radio formats from the most mainstream to the significantly more indie. She’s able to secure extra special treatment from the largest TV networks in the world. 1.5 m people watched the Adele At The BBC show on iPlayer alone across Saturday and Sunday, on top of the 4.55m average who watched it on Friday night. She has guaranteed media exposure, and by restricting her availability on some platforms has focused huge attention on her few appearances and her album itslef.

One could argue that, musically speaking, Adele’s appeal is grounded partly in the fact that she plays it relatively safe. The heartfelt, cards on the table heartbreak ballads that everyone can resonate with may not break any moulds but they are made exciting by her great voice and sheer force of personality. She doesn't need to be innovative or quirky because people who listen to it can call it 'real music' and can relate to her as a real person. Vocally, she also plays it down in a world where excessive melisma in performance has become the norm. She’s able to achieve much greater emotional impact by actually doing less. 

Adele’s warm ‘take me as you find me’ personality is undoubtedly one of her most valuable assets. Her realness runs against ideas of glossy and thin perfectionism, whilst her fans are able to feel like they know her, which is paradoxical, since she’s rarely in the tabloids.  But that adds to the allure. She’s normal and she’s humble, whilst her lyrics deal with universal subject matter. Ultimately everything about her feels authentic and unexaggerated, which means that a huge number of people are able to relate and enjoy.

We expect the success of 25 will continue apace. It’s anything but a typical case study of how to work an album in 2015. Other artists should follow this strategy at their peril. Other artists can benefit from it however. There’s a lot to like about the fact that this success is being achieved on a UK independent label. Adele’s success will result in positive investment back to developing artists, not to mention revenue to the wider UK economy. It shouldn’t go unmentioned either that Adele is an alumnus of the BRIT school, an institution that again and again demonstrates its value not just to its students but to the UK as a whole.

One thing that we haven’t yet mentioned: the sheer number of CD sales for 25. This points to a continued demand for CDs, for physical product in general, and for the possibility for a vibrant UK music retail sector. All too often people are quick to write off sections of this industry, rather than realising that the problem isn’t in the framework but in the content that’s being supplied.