By Liam McGurl
On Friday, Adele said “Hello” to another No. 1 spot on iTunes with her tear-jerking new single.
While the 27-year-old singer isn’t set to release her newest album, 25, until Nov. 20, fans got a sneak peek of the album with the single “Hello,” and its accompanying music video of epic proportions.
The sepia-filtered video, directed by Xavier Dolan, opens with a frazzled Adele trying to find cell service, as she stands in the middle of a forest windstorm. After closing her flip phone, Adele makes her way into an old country home, where the windows are coated in dust and the furniture shrouded in dirty sheets.
As the Britain-native rids the house of its vacant appearance, removing the sheets and letting light through the window, she sits and reminisces about past memories in the house. With a deep breath, Adele looks to the camera and the vocal portion of the six-minute-long video—now with over 40-million YouTube views—begins.
In typical Adele fashion, she begins the song with slower-paced, melodious lyrics about living life apart from her lover, singing, “Hello, it’s me, I was wondering/ If after all these years/ you’d like to meet to go over everything.”
Although Adele doesn’t tell us the details of this failed relationship up-front, the video is full of flashbacks to the “good old days.” From laugh-packed conversations to humorously failed dinner-time cooking, it seems like this relationship couldn’t have ended poorly—which is most likely where the emotion behind this powerful tune comes from.
While the opening lines of the track stayed true to the laid-back Adele we know and love, the chorus brought about a change in the content we’re used to. As Adele, a 2006 graduate of the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, sings the words “I must’ve called a thousand times/To tell you I’m sorry, for everything that I’ve done,” we get an understanding that “Hello” is all about unrequited love.
Despite fans expectations of another breakup anthem album, “Hello” may be Adele’s way of saying she’ll be mixing things up for this next installment.
In a recent Facebook post, Adele told fans that 25 will be “a make-up record. … Making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did.”
Adele went on to tell that “…25 is about getting to know who I’ve become without realizing. And I’m sorry it took so long but, you know, life happened.”
“Hello,” carried by Adele’s striking vocal power and lyrical excellence, is the perfect first single for the singers much anticipated album. If the track is a true model of the record’s asthenic, we can be expecting a record full of robust vocals, affecting lyrics and that badass “Adele attitude” we love.
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