Adele's new single Easy On Me soars straight to number one - breaking a SECOND Official UK Chart record with 24million streams this week

• Adele's new single Easy On Me soared straight to the top of the charts on Friday
• The songstress, 33, has been away from the music scene for the last six years
•  Her new record topped the Official Singles Chart with 217,300 sales in its first week
• The star also broke a second Official UK Chart record, as the hit song gained 24 million streams in the UK this week
• It's the lead single from her upcoming album 30, set to be released on 19 November

She may have been away from the scene for the last six years.

But Adele proved she hasn’t lost her star power as her new single soared straight to the top of the charts.

Easy On Me topped the Official Singles Chart with 217,300 sales in its first week - the highest week one figure since Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You, which earned 226,800 in January 2017.

Easy On Me is Adele’s first release from her upcoming album 30, which is set to be released on 19 November.

The star also broke a second Official UK Chart record, as her new single gained 24 million streams in the UK this week.

It topped a previous record held by pop-singer Ariana Grande, whose January 2019 song 7 Rings held 16.9 million streams. 

Adele's latest smash hit also dominated UK radio over the last seven days, becoming the first record this year to break 100 million listeners in one week. 

Easy On Me also earned the biggest week of digital download sales of 2021 so far, with 23,500.

The release of Adele’s new music sparked a resurgence in streams of her back catalogue, as loyal fans sent two more of her hits back into the Top 40 this week.

When We Were Young landed at Number 25, and Someone Like You took the spot at Number 34.

They also sent her first three albums back into top spots on the Official Albums Chart, as 25 jumped three places to reach Number 3, while 21 climbed eight places to Number 6 and 19 managed 39 places to Number 15.

Announcing her highly anticipated album release date on social media, the mother-of-one shared her personal journey towards producing this album, writing: ‘I’ve learned a lot of blistering truths about myself along the way.

‘I’m finally ready to put this album out.’

After just 20 hours of the song being released, it topped the charts in the UK and US and racked up a whopping 34 million views on YouTube.

Spotify also revealed last week the track has set a new record by becoming the most-streamed song in a single day ever, with a tweet captioned: 'and just like that @adele set a new record.' 

The track includes the lyrics: 'I had good intentions and high hopes but I know it probably doesn't show' and the best-selling hitmaker previously revealed the song - and the new album - would be about her divorce from Simon Konecki.

But despite yet more success, Adele has insisted she plans to step back from making music eventually.

Adele - who has an eight-year-old son, Angelo, with ex-husband Simon Konecki - told Greg James on the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show last week: 'I won't be doing this forever.

'I don't want to do this forever and also people won't want me to do it forever.'

Greg disagreed that people won't want new Adele music and the 'Skyfall' singer quipped: '[Nobody wants to see me] when I'm 95 or hear me whining or chain-smoking, living like a 'Grey Gardens' character with all my cats, being eaten alive.'

The 'Rolling in the Deep' hitmaker - whose last studio album was 2015's '25' - also revealed that some of her 'closest friends' were brutally honest with their feedback for her new music, which is all about her painful divorce from the 47-year-old charity boss. 

She said: 'I sent a snippet of me singing it as I was writing it to three of my closest friends here. One didn't like it, the other one was like, ''Well, yeah, maybe, keep trying though.'

'That was the perfect response for me. I'm such a knee-jerk person. I'll be like, 'I don't like it, forget it!' I'm like that with my music.

'I'm like that with just things I want to do. I'm like that with my feelings and stuff and I think it was clear to them [her friends] in the lyrics that I've bided my time and I wasn't reacting to a reaction or anything like that.

'It was just a feeling that I had stirred on for a while.'