Adele's comeback single "Hello" has broken another record, and in a big way. The video for the song has become the fastest ever to reach 1 billion YouTube views, beating out the former record holder, Psy's "Gangnam Style" in almost half the time it took the latter to reach the milestone.
Adele broke some significant records in 2015, and she's starting off the new year setting some brand new ones. Last October, the video for the "Hello" single broke Taylor Swift's previous record for the most views of a video in a single day, racking up over 27 million sets of eyeballs. Then in November, when the song was released, she broke another record, this time for most first-week digital downloads sold, at 1.1 million.
Later that month, when her 25 album went on sale, she broke the record for most digital downloads of an album and overall sales of an album in its first week of release, with her 3.38 million total besting boy band 'NSync's longstanding previous record by 1 million.
Now, the video for "Hello" has officially received over 1 billion YouTube views, 87 days following its release. That beats out the previous leader, South Korean performer Psy's viral video hit "Gangnam Style," which caught the world's interest to the tune of over a billion YouTube views in 158 days, almost twice the time it took Adele to achieve the same feat.
The 1 billion mark had been reserved for less than a handful of songs until lately, when numerous new songs began surpassing the milestone. Several years ago, "Gangnam Style" and Justin Bieber's "Baby" were the only videos to hold the honor, and it took the Canadian heartthrob over 4 years to make the mark. Maroon 5's "Sugar," Major Lazer's "Lean On," OneRepublic's "Counting Stars," LMFAO's "Party Rock," and Sia's "Chandelier" have all joined the over a billion club.
It's interesting to distinguish between the videos at the billion mark that are most likely viewed due to their video content as opposed to those that are more often streamed as a way to access the song itself. It's clear that the videos by Psy, Sia, and LMFAO had huge actual viewing interest, since the dancing in each piece is a big factor in its popularity.
Psy's moves, LMFAO's shuffling, and the impassioned dance performance of 13-year-old Maddie Ziegler in Sia's video were all crucial elements of their respective song's popularity, while with the Adele and Major Lazer songs, YouTube appears to be acting in some cases as more of an on-demand streamer for listening purposes.
In any case, viewers have now seen or heard Adele hanging up her flip phone over one billion times, and counting.
