Adele’s representatives declined to comment on the decision, which follows a similar move by US country-pop artist Taylor Swift over her album “1989”.
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The impersonators each take a stab at Adele’s “Make You Feel My Love” before “Jenny” takes the stage and blows them all away.
Adele has tangled with Spotify before over free music. Adele, by contrast, just stood in a bunch of swirling leaves and belted her face off. But that was enough for her fans, starved for a new Adele song to wail in the shower. “A lot of her following is older than Taylor Swift’s”, Rolling Stone editor Anthony DeCurtis recently told USA Today, “and they are people who will buy a CD or download a record”, as opposed to listening on Spotify or another streaming service.
“We love and respect Adele, as do her 24 million fans on Spotify”, a spokesperson said. “We hope she will give those fans the opportunity to enjoy 25 on Spotify alongside 19 and 21 very soon”, the company said in a statement.
Alexis Petridis, writing in the Guardian, said the album’s success was a foregone conclusion, but its content was patchy.
Retailers had plenty of access. There’s a song on 25 for every sad mood! “See you on the other side… love Adele x”, the global superstar wrote in the message.
“Hello”, the first single from the album, released at the end of October, has logged more than 400 million plays on YouTube and topped the USA charts for the past three weeks.
She’s one of the industry’s outliers, like Swift, who can sell a truckload of albums in digital AND physical form, and can thus decide to focus on sales over streams without worrying too much about any increase in piracy.
“When We Were Young:” Adele is known for a few of the most incredible ballads in the world and this song would be no different. “And the drum ‘n” bass soft soul of “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” features the lines “We’ve gotta let go of all of our ghosts/We both know we ain’t kids no more”. “Obviously, like Queen Bey until the day I die”, Adele said. Beyoncé withheld her last album, “Beyoncé”, from streaming for almost a year. In the first half of 2015, online streaming grew to 32% of all music sales in the USA, making up for shrinking purchases of CDs and digital singles, according to a report from the Recording Industry Association of America.
Sam Smith and Justin Bieber feature on the latest edition of the 100m-selling compilation series which has quietly helped deliver a 4% boost to United Kingdom recorded music revenues this year.
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As you continue to try and make sense of that relationship going hopelessly sideways, cue up the synth-soaked R&B number “Water Under the Bridge” and sing along to “This is never-ending, we have been here before/But I can’t stay this time ’cause I don’t love you anymore”.
