By ZHAO SHEN
“Hello?”
It’s the first lyric we’ve heard from Adele in over three years. Three years of listeners imploring her to release a new song, and now she’s finally here to answer us. The world’s response has been tremendous; “Hello” has amassed 100 million YouTube views in just five days, broken the U.S. record for first-week digital sales and sent Adele plunging straight back into the limelight.
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There’s one thing I can say for sure: The song is very much in alignment with her previous work. It’s a somewhat minimalistic yet extremely catchy track that emphasizes the many colors of the artist’s beautiful, smoky voice. Starting from soft piano chords under her crooning voice and swelling into a passionate refrain with a style that is distinctively Adele’s, “Hello” does a good job of reintroducing her voice to our ears.
Yes, she’s back, and she’s back in style. “Hello” is a great opening track for her new album 25, and does exactly what it should: get the world excited for the rest of the album to hit on November 20. If you find yourself hating it, you had better brace yourself for the amount of times you’ll hear it on the radio and estrange yourself from all of your fanatical Adele-loving friends. But if you’re like me, you’ll find her latest song a pleasure to listen to and a comforting sign that she still hasn’t lost her touch.