Adele's 'Easy On Me' Off To Quick Start

On Friday, Adele released her first new song in nearly six years, “Easy on Me.” The piano ballad premiered at 7 p.m. ET across streaming services and digital retailers worldwide, alongside its official music video.

“Easy on Me” is the first single from Adele’s upcoming fourth studio album, 30, due out on Nov. 19. Adele last released new music in November of 2015, with the release of her third album, 25.

Billboard reports “Easy on Me” sold nearly 15,000 digital downloads in its first five hours of availability in the U.S. (7 p.m.-midnight ET on Thursday, Oct. 14) according to MRC Data. Meanwhile, it collected over 3 million on-demand audio and video streams in the same time frame.  On Friday, Oct. 15 in the U.S., “Easy” sold another 27,000 downloads, according to initial reports to MRC Data.

Adding up Oct. 14 and Oct. 15, the song has sold over 42,000 in a little over a day in the U.S. To put that number in perspective, only five songs have sold at least that many downloads in a single week in the U.S. in 2021, and four of them are by BTS.

The single drew 897 plays in its first five hours (7 p.m.-midnight ET on Thursday, Oct. 14), on 250 stations that report to Billboard's all-genre Radio Songs chart (whose panel includes over 1,300 stations covering multiple formats). Those 897 plays translate to 3.1 million all-format audience impressions for the song in that span, helped by hourly plays on multiple radio chains.

In its first full day of tracking (Friday, Oct. 15), "Easy" was played 4,160 times, generating 21 million in audience, again propelled, in part, by hourly spins. It ranked as the No. 1 most-played and most-heard song on radio Friday, ahead of runner-up "Stay" by The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber (4,114 plays, 13.2 million in audience).

"Easy" drew 25 or more plays from its release through the end of Friday on 111 Radio Songs reporters, including stations in each of the 10 largest radio markets.

The song is set to debut on at least three individual format radio airplay charts, which are due to update Tuesday, Oct. 19, on Billboard.com. It could launch in the top 10 on Adult Contemporary; if it does, it would claim the first top 10 grand entrance for a non-holiday song since the chart adopted MRC Data information in 1993. The track is also likely to begin in the top 20 of Adult Pop Airplay and the top 25 of Pop Airplay.

The charts measure plays on respective panels of adult contemporary, adult pop and mainstream pop radio stations in the U.S., with the next editions, dated Oct. 30, reflecting airplay covering Oct. 11-17. "Easy" could, thus, debut on the surveys from airplay over its first three full days, plus its first five hours of availability.

And just like that, @Adele set a new record 🏆 pic.twitter.com/WIz55hQmln

— Spotify (@Spotify) October 15, 2021