I haven’t done the math, but on a per-album basis, is there a more successful female artist than Adele? She currently sits at #10 on the all-time sales list for women based on the performance of just three albums. Everybody above her has released at least twice as many.

Even more impressive is that she makes those numbers with seemingly very little effort. She just emerges every 4-5 years after being almost completely out of the spotlight, drops a new song, and watches it break every streaming record in the book.

That was the case with ‘Easy On Me,’ the first single from Adele’s upcoming album, 30. It was teased on October 5 and released just 11 days later, promptly receiving the most streams ever in a single day on Spotify, YouTube and Amazon Music. It also became the most-played song (in a debut week) in radio history.

All that for a rather unremarkable piano ballad. ‘Easy On Me’ doesn’t have the punch of previous lead-off singles ‘Rolling in the Deep’ and ‘Hello.’ It sounds more like a deep cut than the first release from a much-anticipated album.

But what do I know? Clearly Adele did something right. While I suspect she could have released four minutes of heavy breathing and still broken those records, this sad reflection on her recent divorce does seem to have hit a nerve with many listeners.

30 is due out on November 19.