Adele, the biggest-selling recording artist of the past decade, will breathe new life into the ailing album format later this month with 25, her new release, which is on course to top the charts for the year.

过去10年专辑销量最高的唱片艺人阿黛尔(Adele)本月将为陷入困境的专辑市场带来新的生机，她的新专辑《25》即将登上今年排行榜榜首。（编者注：根据最新的报道，阿黛尔的新专辑《25》发行后首周的销售量在英国和美国都打破了以往的纪录。）

But as consumers embrace streaming services from Spotify and Apple, she has left music executives in the dark over her digital distribution plans for the album, the hotly anticipated follow up to 21, which was the biggest-selling title of 2011 and 2012.

但随着消费者青睐Spotify和苹果(Apple)的流媒体服务，她没有让音乐界高管知晓该专辑的数字发行计划。备受期待的《25》是《21》的后续之作，后者是2011年和2012年的销量冠军。

The singer is leaning towards “windowing” the album — making it available on CD or as a paid download for a period of time, before putting it on streaming services, according to people familiar with the situation.

知情人士称，阿黛尔正倾向于为这张专辑“开窗”，这意味着该专辑将先在一段时间内通过CD或者付费下载提供，然后再放到流媒体服务上。

This would be the same strategy she employed for 21, which was initially kept off streaming services to maximise retail sales.

这将是她曾对《21》运用的同样策略，后者最初没有放到流媒体服务上，以便尽可能地扩大零售销售。

21 sold more than 30m copies worldwide — and spent 23 weeks at the top of the charts in the UK — during a period of significant decline for albums. In the US, the total number of CDs sold fell from 767m in 2004 to 141m in 2014, according to figures from the Recording Industry Association of America. Sales of albums via digital download have increased over that period, but not enough to offset the decline, rising from 4.6m in 2004 to 117.6m.

在唱片销售大幅下降期间，《21》在全球销售了逾3000万张唱片，在英国排行榜榜首盘踞了23周。美国唱片业协会(Recording Industry Association of America)的数据显示，在美国，CD总销量已从2004年的7.67亿张下降至2014年的1.41亿张。同期通过数字下载的专辑销量有所增长（从2004年的460万次升至1.176亿次），但还不足以抵消总量的下降。

21 was made available to stream on Spotify 18 months after the album’s release. The star’s stance this time appears to be shifting: while she is unlikely to put the full album available on Spotify immediately, its first single “Hello” was made available to stream last week on the same day it went on sale.

发行18个月后，《21》被放到了Spotify流媒体服务上。阿黛尔这次的立场似乎有所转变：尽管她不太可能将全部专辑立即放上去，但该专辑首支单曲《你好》(Hello)在上周销售当天就被放到了Spotify上。

The track is on course to break the record for the largest number of downloads in a single week and has been streamed more than 47m times on Spotify. The video has been viewed more than 180m times on YouTube.

该专辑即将打破单周下载量最多的纪录，它在Spotify上的播放超过4700万次。该专辑在YouTube上已被观看逾1.8亿次。

Taylor Swift, whose album 1989 was released last year, pulled her catalogue from Spotify when the streaming service refused to take her music from its free tier.

去年发行《1989》专辑的泰勒斯威夫特(Taylor Swift)从Spotify上撤掉了自己的曲目，原因是Spotify拒绝将其音乐撤出免费类别。

Mark Mulligan, a music industry analyst with Midia Research, said Adele was unlikely to take a similar approach because her audience was broader than the typical Spotify listener — which is typically younger — so the availability of her singles on the service will not dent full album sales or downloads. “It would be a safer bet [for the new album] to not be on Spotify but it won’t be a huge risk if it is,” he said.

MIDiA Research的音乐行业分析师马克穆里根(Mark Mulligan)表示，阿黛尔不太可能采取类似举措，因为她的听众比典型的Spotify听众（通常较为年轻）更广泛一些，因此她在该服务上的单曲不会影响整个专辑的销售或下载。他说：“（对新专辑而言）不放在Spotify上将是更安全的押注，但如果放了，风险也不会太大。”

Sony Music, which will release the record in the US, declined to comment on its plans for the album. Spotify and Apple Music also declined to comment.

将在美国发行该专辑的索尼音乐(Sony Music)拒绝就其发行计划置评。Spotify和苹果音乐(Apple Music)也拒绝置评。

Downloads and new income from streaming services will lift global digital revenues from music above revenue from physical sales for the first time in 2015, according to a new report from Ovum, the consultancy.

咨询公司Ovum发布的一份新报告显示，来自流媒体服务的下载和新收入，将会让全球音乐市场的数字收入在2015年首次超过实体销售。