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How Adele crafted the ultimate comeback song

Published by Business Insider on Fri, 06 Nov 2015


A crucial part of being a star is knowing how to make an entrance. Perhaps no one knew this better than golden-age movie stars. They made entrances that pretended to be about the material but were really all about them. Picture Rita Hayworth,flipping her hair and issuing a mock-surprised Me' in 1946s Gilda. Or Lana Turner,rolling a lipstick case across the floor and framing her legs in a doorway just so inThe Postman Always Rings Twice. Or Orson Welles, in 1949s The Third Man, preening and smirking from a streetlit doorway, as if to say, Thats right, folks, it really is me.Theres just such a moment in the music video for Adeles Helloarguably the most watched film of the past week. (It was filmed, appropriately enough, in IMAX, by a Cannes-acclaimed director.) The big moment is when Adele finally comes in for her closeup. After spending most of the initial, music-less minute of the clip with her face teasingly just out of sight, she at last settles herself front and center. Her face spotlighted, her thick-lashed eyelids closed, she rolls her head on her neck and then, at 1:15, there it is: She opens her big eyes, to the toll of the first piano note, gazing straight into the camera: Hello, its me. Shameless, knowing, effectivethats an entrance.Yes, Hello, its me is the actual opening line of Adeles new hit. Has a first single from a superstar album ever arrived more freighted with persona' Michael' Madonna' Whitney' Amateurs. None of them previewed a predestined blockbuster with a song quite as carefully branded, and instantly successful, as Hello. The lead single from Adeles epically anticipated album 25 debuts on both the U.K. and U.S. charts at No. 1 with staggeringly large numbers. Since it materialized a bit less than two weeks ago, its been said that Adele could have released any kind of song and it would have been a megahit. But thats only half-right. Hello is an out-of-the-box global smash because it is a quintessential product of Adele, Queen of Heartbreak. Later in the song, she sings, Its so typical of me to talk about myself/ Im sorry, but lets be clearAdeles not sorry at all, most especially for talking about herself.It appears no one else is sorry Adele is talking about herself, either. Here in America, Hello commands Billboards flagship Hot 100 with record or near-record returns in almost every chart metric: sales, airplay, and audio and video streams. Hello is the 24th song in Hot 100 history to debut at No. 1, and its the second song to pull this off in 2015, coming less than two months after Justin Biebers What Do You Mean' started on top. But Hello does it with numbers that make Biebers look measly, roughly tripling the first-week sales and streams for Mean. In the process, Adele even prevented Bieber from scoring back-to-back No. 1s with his followup hitthis week, the Biebs new Sorry was forced to debut at No. 2 despite strong sales and video numbers. Like Drakes Hotline Bling, which as predicted has peaked at No. 2 thanks to Hello, Biebers latest is collateral damage to Adeles cataclysmic return.About those numbers: Hello set a one-week streaming record at on-demand audio sites like Spotify, and another record for first-day video streaming at Vevo/YouTube. It didnt set an all-out record at radio, but even there its a remarkably fast airplay-gainer. Still, perhaps the most stunning data point is Adeles digital sales figure. At buck-a-song download sites like iTunes, Hello sold 1.11 million copies in its first week. Thats not only a record, its an obliteration of the prior high-water mark. Way back in February 2009, Flo Ridas club-pop hit Right Round sold 636,000 copies in its digital debut. Over the last six-plus years, that fairly random record-holder has proved oddly hard to beat. And then, here comes Adele, with a new one-week sales marker thats 75 percent higher than Flos old record.Whats sort of crazy about this digital-song record is that song downloads in generalpeaked more than two years ago, as the public began its shift from digital sales to streaming. Scoring a million-weeker album is impressive enough (and 25 will do that easily), but Adele just pulled off the first-ever million-weeker single in digital history. Its also the fastest-selling single, period, since Elton Johns Princess Diana tribute single Candle in the Wind 1997. Selling a million song downloads in a week in 2015 is about as improbable a feat as releasing adiamond-selling album in the 2010s. Adele has now done bothdefying music-biz gravity is her specialty.It is difficult to overstate how world-conquering Adeles second album 21 was. At the risk of hyperbole, it really is the Thriller of the 2010s. Like Michael Jacksons 1982 opus, which was Americas No. 1 album of both 1983 and 1984, 21 was the top-selling album of two consecutive years, 2011 and 2012. Like Jacksons album, 21 spun off multiple hitsfewer overall than Thriller (which produced seven Top 10s, two ofthem No. 1s) but more chart-toppers (three No. 1s for Adele, with Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You, and Set Fire to the Rain). Most strikingly, like Thriller, Adeles album utterly dwarfs every other musical product released in its decade. Yes, even including Taylor Swift: Unlike Swifts quick-out-the-gate albums, which routinely sprint to a million copies in their first week and then eventually top out in the four-to-seven million range, 21 performed like a long-distance runner. After arriving in the winter of 2011 with about a third of a million in first-week sales, 21 took up residence in the Top 10 and stayed there for a year and a half. It never sold a Swift-like million in a week, but it eventually crossed 11 million. In short, nothing nowadays sells like 21sold.Following up a career achievement like 21 is crazy-makingJackson is widely perceived to have gone a bit mad living in the shadow of Thriller. Adele appears to be handling the run-up to 25 with relative equanimity and poise. But by the evidence of Hello, she is also well aware of what her brand stands for, and she is not leaving the relaunch to chance. Just as Jackson led off his 1987 Thriller followup Bad with the watery, fairly safe ballad I Just Cant Stop Loving You, with Hello, Team Adele has taken out an album-release insurance policy. Reportedly, 25 will contain songs more daring than its leadoff single: Longtime Adele collaborator Paul Epworth told Rolling Stone their goal on the album was exploring the weirdest sounds possible on a centrist pop-vocal album and not being so anachronistic as they were on 21. But Hello, whatever its meritsa powerhouse vocal and a very memorable chorus among themis not a pathbreaker.Thematically and melodically, Hello is more or less a reboot of Someone Like You. That iconic second single from 21, co-written by Adele with Semisonics Dan Wilson, was actually something novel when it topped the charts in 2011: It became the first piano-and-vocal-only No. 1 in Hot 100 history, and it launched a roughly two-year wave on the radio of what I called New Stark balladsfrom John Legend to A Great Big World.Compared to most hit songs in late 2015, Hellolike Someone, co-written with a poised male songwriter, journeyman writerproducer Greg Kurstinis indeed stark, albeit a bit less so than its predecessor. For one thing, Hello features majestic drums, unlike the drumless Someone. The more notable departure is in the lyricHello is Someones mirror image. Where Adele was the wronged party on Someone, singing with wounded pride about seeking a replacement for a now-married ex, on Hello Adele is the transgressor, one whos sorry for breaking your heart. Someone was structured like a Dear John letter the singer never actually sent, while Hellofrom its telephonic, Lionel-like title on downis rather literally a voicemail message.Of course, these are all interesting twists, but were still talking about two songs in which Adele is belting to a former lover about why he wont talk to her anymore. Saying Hello is distinct from Someone Like You is like saying Road to Morocco is distinct from Road to Zanzibar. Adele has even recreated the most affecting chorus moment of Someone, the break in her voice that telegraphs hurt: 2011s weepy Dont forget me [crack], I beg, becomes 2015s To tell you [crack] Im sorry. (In both cases, the voice-crack might be the songs best hook.) Theres nothing wrong with an artist owning her turf and burnishing her brand. Its what Whitney Houston was doing on her 1992 cover of Dolly Partons I Will Always Love You, taking back her mantle as Americas premier vocalist and reminding fans why they first fell in love with her. But the Whitney songs unusual a cappella opening and cinematic bigness felt relatively new to Houstons fans at the time. For Adele fans, Hello is a favorite sweater from past winters theyre happy to pull down off the shelf and snuggle in again.Since she blew up four years ago, part of Adeles appeal has been the notion that shes an avatar of authenticity in modern pop music. But I and several other criticseven those of us who actually like Adelewould prefer to see an end to, or at least some nuance around, this idea. With her no-bullshit persona and delightfully unguarded cackle, Adele is certainly one of the least pretentious major pop stars weve had. As an artist, she clearly follows her heart. But the same machanations that power other blockbuster pop acts are hard at work in Adeles oeuvre, too, even if she sometimes presents herself with little more than a piano or an acoustic guitar. As the brilliant pop critic Maura Johnston wrote in 2011, [P]ainting [Adele] as some sort of anti-selling-out princess is a snow job; theres a deliberate confusion of aestheticand the apparatus bringing that aesthetic into millions of iTunes libraries.Indeed, the list of producers on 21 was almost as long as that on Katy Perrys last album. One of Perrys producers, the aforementioned Greg Kurstin, shows up on Hello and the forthcoming 25; another, Greg Wells, cowrote a 21 album cut with Adele as well as the early, casually homophobic Perry single Ur So Gay. Among the people whove written hits with Adele are OneRepublics Ryan Tedderfamed for hits for everyone from Leona Lewis to Jordin Sparks to Maroon 5and Fraser Smith, whos handled tracks for British popstars Lily Allen, The Wanted, and Taio Cruz. Is Adele a better singer than any of the above artists' Pretty much. Does she bring out the best in these hitmakers' ReliablyTedders two tracks on 21 are probably the best hes ever had a hand in. And can she pen a tune all by her lonesome' She can. (So can Perry.) But all of these artists, Adele included, choose and craft songs with one eye on their public image and another on the marketplace.What is admirable about Adele is that she knows her image of authenticity, and the whole idea of authenticity, are baloney, toobut she is not above having it both ways. And why not' Its her prerogative as a superstar, and Hello finds her owning that superstardom. Its far from her best song, but whats actually bracing about Hello is how it makes Adeles regal status plain. Its every bit as bluntly self-aware as its video: Hello, its me/ I was wondering if after all these years/Youd like to meet/ To go over everything. She might as well have titled the song, Hello to My Global Public. All of Adeles songs have been, in some way, about Adelebut this may be her first song thats about itself. Please, she implies, do call it a comeback.SEE ALSO:The incredibly successful life of 10-time Grammy winner AdeleJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: Here's how much it costs to live like James Bond in real life
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