Less than a day before 25 hits the “shelves,” the New York TImes reported it won’t be available for streaming. Adele apparently decided on this herself, the Verge reports, likely because the platforms aren’t thrilled with limiting the album’s availability to paid subscribers.
The absence of 25 from Spotify and its ilk likely won’t stop this album from becoming the best-selling recording of the year. The album’s first single, “Hello,” became the first song ever to see 1 million paid downloads in a week, and as of early November it had the best week of sales in 15 years. Billboard even thinks the album could sell 2.5 million copies in its first week, which would be the highest number of album sales since N*SYNC’s No Strings Attached, all the way back in 2000.
Adele actually made the same move with her previous album. 21, for the same reasons as her new album. That didn’t negatively impact sales, as it went on to sell 30 million copies over the last four years.
Of course, she’s not the first artist to do this. Taylor Swift infamously pulled her music from Spotify just a year ago. Prince has also been adamantly opposed to most streaming services, pulling his music from all of them (except Tidal) in July.
Coldplay are also considering “pulling an Adele” for their upcoming album A Head Full of Dreams.