“Hello,” the first new music from Adele in more than three years, has finally arrived, and it sounds exactly like what you’d expect. The straightforward ballad is a one-Adele competition to see who can go the biggest, the loudest, the most epically inflated depiction of pedestrian emotions through a sepia filter. Following up on her 2011 album 21, “Hello” explores doomed love from the rearviewmirror, through a Xavier Dolan-directed visual with a stark background.
Dolan’s touch gives a deeper tenderness to the poignant track, a bruised memory lane walk through the rain-soaked Montreal landscape. In the opening sequence, Dolan’s lens accompanies the singer’s efforts to clean up an old house, pulling covers off dusty furniture, lingering, pondering what once existed in this room.
But what the hell is up with that phone? Never mind that she’s rubbing her hands all over her face at the four minute mark. Both Adele and her costar Tristan Wilds (The Wire, 90210) are using “Sons of Anarchy” level flip-phones, or “burners” as they called them.
One thing I like about Adele’s new video, is how wank her phone is. pic.twitter.com/ExyoJwYojE
— mof gimmers (@mofgimmers) October 23, 2015
Weird. Anyway, even Adele knows that this one’s a bit obvious, playing to the grand drama of her vocal: She told the BBC the new song was “very intimate” and “very conversational. I’m singing very high up in that chorus, trying to have a Meatloaf moment or something,” she joked.
Save the meatloaf jokes, please. We’ve got serious heartbreak-conquering empowerment to fawn over.
