LONDON — Six years since the release of her last album, Adele is back – and within just 24 hours she shattered records.
Streaming service Spotify announced this weekend that the British singer’s new single “Easy on Me,” which was released Friday, broke a new record for the most streams in a single day.
“On Friday, October 15th, Adele’s Easy On Me became Spotify’s more-streamed song in a single day,” the audio company wrote on social media as fans celebrated the star’s record-breaking comeback.
Singer Adele arrives at the 58th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California
Amazon Music on Saturday announced that the single had received “the most first-day Alexa song requests in Amazon Music history.”
The single is taken from her highly-anticipated album “30,” which is set to be released on Nov. 19. Her previous album, “25,” which was released in 2015, had the highest first week sales in U.S. album chart history – and included the hit “Hello” which became the fastest video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube.
While Spotify did not divulge a precise figure of how many people listened on release day, “Easy on Me” stole the crown from K-pop boyband BTS which had held the top spot for most streams in one day for their single “Butter,” released in May 2021. According to Billboard, Spotify currently reaches 365 million monthly active users.
On social media, many Adele fans used the comments section of Spotify’s Instagram announcement to confess that they helped drive up the tally.
“Half of them were from me,” joked one user, while another branded the 33-year-old British musician as “unstoppable.”
The star’s albums – “19,″ “21,” “25,” and now “30” – are all named after the age she was at the time of writing her music.
“I’m ready to finally put this album out,” the singer wrote in an Instagram post last week, adding that the new music had been her “ride or die throughout the most turbulent period of my life.”
It has indeed been a tumultuous few years for the star who has been navigating her divorce from Simon Konecki, with whom she has a 9-year-old son, Angelo.
In 2019, the pair announced their split after seven years together.
In a recent interview with British Vogue, Adele opened up about the divorce and its impact on her son. “My son has had a lot of questions. Really good questions, really innocent questions, that I just don’t have an answer for. [like] ‘Why can’t you still live together?’” she told journalist Giles Hattersley, adding that she struggled with anxiety as her marriage broke down.
“I definitely learnt a lot of tools in my therapy, but I also just go with it,” she said. “I find the anxiety gets worse when you try and get rid of it.”
During an Instagram Live with fans last week, the star was asked what the new album was about. Adele replied, “divorce babe, divorce.”
