Adele is on track for the biggest debut for single sales this year with “Easy on Me.”
Released a week ago tonight, “Easy on Me” has sold 400,000 copies through yesterday. It will hit 500,000 copies plus by the time the sales week ends tonight.
It’s a big number but not as big as Adele’s last huge hit. First week sales in 2015 for “Adele” were 1.1. million. In a month she sold 2.5 million copies of “Hello.”
Most of Adele’s sales are from streaming. The download sales are around 80,000.
This year, the only single to come close was BTS’s “Butter,” which opened with 242,800 copies. “Butter” is now melting in the face of Adele’s onslaught.
Even with “Hello” hovering around in the background, “Easy On Me” will be the biggest debut single going back several years. In 2017, Taylor Swift sold 353,000 copies of “Look What You Made Me Do” which sampled “I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt.”
Singles sales, even with streaming, are in a huge decline, about 60% off from five years ago overall.