Adele - Hello

After disappearing entirely from the public eye for three years, Adele returned with three words. “Hello, it’s me” - in an X Factor ad break, of all places. It was enough to send everything into a frenzy, and no surprise. It’s a very amusing, and a very ‘Adele,’ way to return. Lets remember that we’re talking about a woman who successfully rhymed “skyfall” with “crumble,” here, not to mention that an estimated 1 in 6 households in the UK apparently have a copy of her last album ’21’ resting by the stereo. Yet, here she is. No fanfares, no pomp, just a brief greeting.

A ‘Hello’ is all that’s needed to cement her return. Picking up four years later, the reluctant well-wishing coursing through ‘Someone Like You’ and the angered regret of ‘Rolling in the Deep,‘ are both replaced by more reflective, retrospective sadness. “After all these years,” Adele’s asking nobody in particular if there’s any way she can say she’s sorry, move on and put the whole thing to bed. All she wants is closure, but the phone line’s gone dead.

Typically, Adele doesn’t faff about with lyrical flouncing or overblown poetic statements. She’s not offering to raise mountains, walk halfway across the world, or summon thousands of shooting stars for anybody. Instead, it’s all very confiding, and straight-forward in a way that makes the emotional clout all the more pronounced. The heart and soul that comes from her voice - painstakingly controlled but flipping out into acrobatics like she’s sitting right on the edgeof composure - is there, still, as we always knew it would be, and blimey o’reily, can she still write a heartwrencher. Hello, Adele. It’s good to have you back.