Ed Sheeran's New Album 'Divide' Breaks Streaming Records

Ed Sheeran is on course to register the biggest-selling album of 2017, as his third record Divide smashes through mid-week chart records on its way to being number one this week.

The 26 year old singer-songwriter finally unleashed his newly-awaited album last Friday (March 3rd), and as of Monday night it is a million miles ahead of all other releases in the UK, having outsold the rest of the Top 200 combined more than twice over.

Divide shifted a massive 232,000 copies in Britain alone on the first day of its release, and three days later it sits at 432,000 sales. If that wasn’t enough, it has also broken Spotify streaming records, with the album’s songs notching up more than 56 million streams during its first 24 hours, shattering the previously held record by The Weeknd’s Starboy (29 million streams) set recently in December 2016.

The only real question remains whether Sheeran can break the all-time sales record held by Adele’s third album 25, which sold 803,000 units in Britain on its first week of release back in November 2015.

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Ben Cook, the president of Atlantic Records in the UK, said in a statement: “Ed is an artist that inspires a generation, and the release of Divide is a global event. It's great to see so many people across the world respond to this brilliant new work in such an unprecedented manner.”

“As the way we release music changes, Ed continues to shape culture and how it evolves. It’s early days, but we're really excited to see what we can achieve alongside Ed and his management on what is an outstanding landmark record.”

Sheeran is currently the bookmakers’ favourite to bag the third and final headlining spot at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, alongside Radiohead and Foo Fighters who have already been confirmed.

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