Adele has become the fastest artist ever to reach one billion views on a single YouTube video. The streaming service announced Thursday that her music video for “Hello” has received its 1 billionth view. The smash single from the British singer’s record-breaking album “25” took just 87 days to hit the milestone. The previous record was 158 days for Psy’s “Gangnam Style.”
Currently, 17 videos have reached the 1 billion view mark on YouTube. Seven of those videos reached the milestone in the past year. Other music videos in the club include Maroon 5’s “Sugar,” Major Lazer’s “Lean On,” OneRepublic’s “Counting Stars,” LMFAO’s “Party Rock” and Sia’s “Chandelier.” “Gangnam Style” is still the most-watched YouTube video of all-time, racking up more than 2.5 billion views since 2012.
Newer music videos such as Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” achieved the one billion view mark at a faster pace than older ones like Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” In 2013, the fastest track to 1 billion was Katy Perry’s “Roar” at 487 days. In 2014, it was Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” at 238 days. Several music videos are just short of reaching 1 billion views, including Shakira’s “Waka Waka,” Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” and Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me Like You Do.”
Adele has broken a string of records with her third album. The album beat the Fifa 16 computer game to become the UK’s biggest-selling home entertainment title of 2015 after just a few weeks of sales, selling 2,604,850 copies by the end of the year. “Hello” spent its first 10 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
Even Beyonce is impressed with the reception that Adele’s third album has received. Sources say that she has reportedly completed wrapped work on her sixth studio album, but has delayed the release in order to allow Adele her time to shine. The star reportedly wanted Adele to have her share of the spotlight with her first album in four years.
Beyonce can afford to wait. Her 2013 release saw her drop her self-titled fifth record and 14 videos on the same day in December. Her last album sold half a million copies in 24 hours. Beyonce is rumored to be joining pal Chris Martin on stage at the Super Bowl when Coldplay performs the half time show on February 7. That could be the perfect opportunity to announce the release of her new album.
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