Adele Archives - Haulix Daily

The first week sales numbers for Adele’s third album are in, and the results are even better than the most absurd predictions suggested they would be. With no streams made available through any service and only one single released to radio, Adele’s 25 moved just over three-million copies in the United States during the week ending last Friday, November 27. That number is almost a million units above the previous best first-week sales, which was set by the boy band *NSYNC in a year when the industry as a whole moved over 700 million units. This year, the industry will move just over 200 million units, meaning Adele’s sales already account for money than 1% of all music sold in America during 2015, and that number is going to continue to rise as we head further into the holiday shopping season.

There are many things that can be inferred from these numbers, and in the coming weeks there will no doubt be a number of sites hoping to highlight these points in one or more listicles. We probably haven’t covered everything, but there are four major takeaways from this news we felt were important to highlight here on the blog…

Despite streaming figures that might suggest otherwise, quality still trumps quantity when it comes to winning over consumers

25 is the first release from Adele in years. In the time since her last album the pop superstar has made it a point to keep details regarding new material to a minimum, and she has spent very little time fussing over social media or the way she is perceived in the press. In an age where almost every marketing book will tell you that developing and maintaining constant fan engagement is the key to success Adele has proven such efforts matter very little if you have quality music to share. She understand that no amount of marketing or witty public observations can compare to the selling power of a great song, so she chooses to focus her time on crafting the best new material possible. Everything else comes second, and because the quality of her work is so high fans are willing to accept this fact. More importantly, they are willing to pay to ensure it continues.

Word of mouth is everything

Adele only allowed a select number of critics to hear 25 in its entirety prior to release, and most did not share their reviews until he album was made available to the public, so it’s a little hard to say critical acclaim played any role in the album’s success. While I am confident Adele’s numerous appearances in the press did bring more attention to her new release than what would have existed if she had chosen to remain silent, the real motivating factor behind the initial album sales appears to have been the court of public opinion. People of all ages and races connect with Adele for one reason or another, and anytime she chooses to share new material there are people who are willing to share it with everyone they know. If fact, she doesn’t even have to ask for help. People share Adele’s music and videos because it makes them feel something they otherwise might not have felt, and they long to share that feeling with other people. As long as she continues to deliver powerful observations on life and love through music that trend will continue to develop, which means more and more people being exposed to her art.

Sticking with what has always worked instead of taking creative risks isn’t always such a bad idea.

I would never suggest someone try and force their creativity to fit one idea or style, but there is something to be said for choosing to master one sound instead of becoming sufficiently good at numerous styles of music. 25 is an album filled with the same grandiose ballads that have been found on all of Adele’s albums, and outside of the radio-ready pop sound of “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” there are very few surprises on the record. For most artists that would be received by critics and fans as playing it safe, but I have seen very few people complain about what Adele has created with her new album. The only explanation is, again, that the quality of the material is so good it essentially voids most basic complaints. Would it be cool to hear Adele try something a bit more in the style of, say, Fleetwood Mac? Hell yes. Am I going to complain that power-ballads like “When We Were Young” were recorded instead? Hell no. Adele has made it a point to perfect her sound a bit more with each album, and that, to me, is just as exciting as taking risks.

Streaming may help sell records, or it may not.

Adele chose to keep 25 off of every streaming service on the planet, and there were many industry analysts who thought this might spell disaster for first week sales. Full album streams, they suggest, are what sells people on buying an album. They think music fans have become so fickle that they will not risk making a bad investment on an album they haven’t heard. While that may be true for some consumers, the success of 25 proves that many simply are not sold on certain artists’ ability to create an album filled with quality material. Most, it seems, are believed to be better at making singles.

I think it’s smart for all developing artists to make sure their initial recordings are available everywhere imaginable, but as their careers continues to develop they should continually reevaluate just what, if any, direct impact streaming has on their sales. Are you moving units on the strength of singles and digital promotion? If so, maybe there is no immediate rush to stream your first full length. What matters most is that you never take for granted what does and doesn’t work for your career. You and your music are unique, so you should never expect what works for others to also help your career.

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

The only thing more annoying than bandwagon fans may be bandwagon haters. People who feel it is their duty as fans of a particular sound or genre to tear down whoever is currently dominating the charts because they believe it makes them unique or edgy in some way. We who embrace the hitmakers know better, as we understand there is a reason certain artists see their star shoot into the stratosphere while others must work incredibly hard for every tiny bit of success they achieve. The reasons for this are as numerous as grains of sand on the beach, but one thing that is almost always true about real music stars, and by that I mean those who are able to hold the public’s attention across multiple albums, is that they always find a way to connect with people in a way that feels personal.

To be clear, what I just said is far easier to grasp than it is to recreate. We all follow our own paths in this life, experiencing practically every aspect of existence in a way that is wholly unique to ourselves, yet for some reason there are certain songs and/or artists who have the power to make us feel as though we are part of something bigger than ourselves. Call it a community, or a culture, or a way of life, but there is something to the biggest material in history that connects with people in a deeply personal way. You may have never experienced the situation being described in the song, and you may never know the story that inspired the lyrics, but something about the way emotion is being expressed cuts through the noise and strikes you right in your soul. It moves you, as it does others, and as soon as it’s over we long to feel that connection again. That is the sign you’ve found something truly great in music, and it’s something that is completely achievable by pretty much every artist working today. That is, if they work hard enough.

The big star of the moment is Adele, and by now you’ve no doubt heard her single “Hello” between one and one-hundred times in your daily life. Her music is everywhere right now, and her new single “When We Were Young” seems poised to push her exposure even further. The production on these tracks is undeniably gorgeous, and Adele’s powerful voice is something that will be praised for decades to come, but what makes these songs work at Top 40 radio and beyond has little do with those factors and far more to do with the feeling you get when the music plays. Adele, like Drake on tracks like “Hotline Bling” or “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” has the power to make you miss people and situations you have never actually known. Something in the way the music compliments the lyrics, which are typically pulled from a deeply personal place, creates an atmosphere of turmoil and heartache that listeners take upon themselves to connect with events in their own lives. It doesn’t matter whether or not the events that inspired the song are the same as the events the lyrics are being applied to by the listeners, and it never will. All that matters is that the performer is able to capture a feeling, or perhaps a better description would be a sense of being, that translates on a massive scale.

What I’m trying to say is that the reason these artists skyrocket into the music stratosphere while others fight over lower chart positions is because people feel like the know them. When you hear the music of Adele and Drake, or even smaller acts like The Hotelier or Modern Baseball, you feel as if you are hearing an update from a close friend about what has been going on in their life since you last spoke. It’s entertaining, yes, but it’s so much more than that as well. You long for those updates, and when they arrive you click play with all the hope in the world that you and this person or group, whom you’ve never met, have been experiencing similar situations in life. You hope there is something in there story that relates to your own, and that kind of connection is incredibly hard to break. Even if the quality of the music begins to suffer, and the radio songs can’t crack the top 10, people who have connected to an artist on an emotional level will continue to follow them for as long as they are able.

I cannot tell you how to create songs that connect with people the way the latest singles from Drake and Adele do, but that is okay because writing material like that should not be your goal after reading this post. Writing music that would work for Drake or Adele is not guaranteed to work for you, at all. Your goal, or better yet your mission, should be to find a way to create the music you want to make in such a way that it connects with people like the material released by your musical peers. It’s not about copying someone else’s formula, but rather finding a way to tap into the same set of relatable emotions that has established countless artists as household names over the last hundred or so years of pop music. Even if you’re writing metal, the goal remains the same. You want to create something that is both personal and universal, which shares a part of you in a meaningful way while still allowing others to add their own meaning to the material. There is no recipe for that kind of creation, nor are the any guides I would suggest you spend time reading. The best way to make material like this is too simply keep creating, and in time you will learn to refine your skills. As your songwriting improves, so will the reach of your music, but you cannot allow yourself to get lost in thoughts of what a song could potentially be or do for you. As soon as you take your focus away from creating great songs that actually mean something to you, the artist, your chances of connecting with listeners begins to drop. Stay true to yourself and people will notice. It might take time, but that’s perfectly okay.