Pandora has confirmed that Adele is bringing her latest album to the radio streaming service, leaving more popular streaming services in the dust without the hit album on their virtual music shelves.
Over Facebook, Pandora announced that "25" will be available for streaming to all users starting Tuesday, despite earlier announcements from Adele's camp that she has decided to ditch streaming music services Spotify and Apple Music for her latest album.
Pandora, however, is not exactly a true-blue streaming service, where users can stream an entire album uninterrupted by ads if they have a subscription. Instead, it is an online radio service where users will have to create their own station dedicated to Adele, and Pandora will populate that station with songs from the 27-year-old British singer's "25" and her earlier albums as well as songs from similar artists. Over time, all songs from "25" will make their way to the station, although users will probably have to wait a while for that.
Pandora also sent a statement to Entertainment Weekly, confirming the Facebook post. The service also says the arrival of Adele's lead single "Hello" on Pandora has driven the number of people adding her to their stations by up to 12 times. The song appears to be more popular than Adele's previous hit "Someone Like You."
"Good news, radio listeners, you can now hear all songs from Adele's latest album '25' on Pandora," a Pandora spokesperson says. "It is clear radio listeners love Adele and are coming to Pandora to enjoy her incredible music. Since 'Hello' was added to our platform last month, her total station adds are up 1,200 percent. Within that same timeframe, spins for 'Hello' are more than 5x the number for the next most popular song 'Someone Like You.'"
Prior to the album launch, Spotify and Apple Music unveiled they will not be streaming "25", although they did not mention why Adele had decided not to make her album available on their services. One theory was not making it available on Spotify and Apple Music will force fans to buy digital and in-store, therefore driving the sales numbers up.
Indeed, "25" has been enjoying such immense numbers that, in its first three days alone, the album has broken the record for biggest number of first-week sales. According to Nielsen Music, "25" brought home around 2.43 million sales since it launched Friday last week, surpassing the previous record set by 1990s boy band NSYNC at 2.41 million in 2000. The figure is for the first three days of sales, and the week isn't over yet, so we won't be surprised if "25" smashes more records in the future.
