Adele has released a statement that her new album, 25 (no, she is not still 25-years-old), will not be made available on streaming services such as Spotify and the new iTunes streaming service.
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“Her soulful new single, ‘Hello, ‘ is available to stream on Apple Music along with her entire catalog and her revealing interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1”, Apple said in a statement.
Adele’s representatives declined to comment on the decision. By comparison, other big sellers this year like Drake’s “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” and The Weeknd’s “Beauty Behind the Madness” sold 495,000 copies and 326,000 copies, respectively, in their first weeks.
So, is it a bad thing that Adele hasn’t exactly “experimented” on 25? Adele was one of a number of major acts to do that in 2011, when she released her last record, “21”. The album debuted in the United Kingdom at the top of the album charts, and would later help the singer take home the Grammy Award in 2009 for Best New Artist.
The same reportedly goes for all streaming services, including Apple Music.
The streaming sites said today that Adele’s “25” will not be available for streaming when it is released on Friday. There’s a reason why 21 sold so many copies around the world, and of course Adele and her team are going to capatalise on that.
The freemium approach, championed by Spotify, lets users listen free as long as they like in the hope that they will buy subscriptions.
Adele performed the song in the USA on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in October of 2008.
Brick-and-mortar retailers are also counting on the album as a major sales attraction during the holiday season.
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“We fully expect this to be one of our best-selling albums ever”, said Lee Henderson, a spokesman for Target.
