Over the past two pandemic-filled years, we’ve seen a musical craving for fun, disco-tinged pop with cheeky lyrics and maybe Adele’s ode to heartbreak brings down the mood as we try to heal from our worldwide trauma. Rania Aniftos: I’m going to say that slow songs just don’t generate as much buzz lately.
What do you think the biggest reason is for the discrepancy between the two sets’ opening performances? Obviously there’s a ton of context that goes into 30 only doing a fraction of 25′s first-week number, including much that’s changed about the industry since 2015. Adele is still unquestionably a superstar, and possibly the very biggest one, but she’s just not a superhero anymore.Ģ. But only a quarter? Sure, you can’t compare eras, but it was only a year and change ago that Taylor Swift’s Folklore - a surprise release with no hit singles, a relatively uncommercial sound, and no physical availability at first - moved 846,000 in its first week.
Obviously nobody expected her to approach 3.38 million again - that was the Haley’s Comet of 21st century pop, an achievement that grows more staggering and improbable with each passing year - and even getting half that would have remained a fairly stunning feat. Given streaming’s growth over the past six years, it’s expected that sales for this project would be lower.Īndrew Unterberger: A 5. The fact that 30 arrives with lower-than-prognosticated equivalent album units may be enough to prevent too much champagne-popping - but when coming up short of commercial expectations still yields the biggest album debut of the year, how upset can you really get? If you’re Adele, you’ve transcended the experience of worrying about first-week consumption numbers a long time ago, and can simply enjoy a guaranteed chart-topper whenever you release a lead single or new full-length. As we’ll get into below, albums simply don’t sell in the same way they used to, so 839,000 is more a reflection of the major ways music consumption has changed in the last six years than it is on the popularity of Adele - which clearly remains enormous given that 839,000 is the best first week sales number of 2021. If I were Adele, I’d be thrilled that my fans welcomed me back with open arms with an objectively very impressive number of sales, despite the dip since the last album. After a six-year break, I don’t think any artist can know for sure how their return to music will perform – especially if the last album broke multiple records. If you’re Adele, how are you feeling about that first-week performance, on a scale from 1-10? However, the number is only about a quarter of the historic first week (3.38 million) she experienced for her 25 album in 2015. 30 blows by the competition for this year’s best first-week sales number, with 839,000 units moved in its first week of sale.