I must admit, I haven’t had the best experiences with tunes played ad nauseam. But everything—including my fear of losing my love for certain songs due to repeated exposure—changed when Adele released “Hello” and it burrowed deep into my brain, a most welcome parasite. Now, everything is Adele and nothing hurts. I encourage you to listen along (on repeat, of course) as I reveal, in a POMEmag exclusive, my journey into uncontrollable song-lust thanks to the transcendent gift that is Adele’s “Hello.”
Why the skepticism about listening to tracks on repeat? When I was ten, my sister and I finally got our greedy little hands on Britney Spears’s Oops! . . . I Did It Again album. For whatever reason, my sister was a big fan of “Dear Diary,” which she once played on repeat for an entire afternoon. Yes, that’s right: for an entire afternoon, our house reverberated with Britney crooning “Dear Diary, today I saw a boy. . . .” (I still know a lot of the lyrics to that song. I’m not exactly proud.) After the third time, it was gibberish. Garbage. After the seventh time, I thought my ears would bleed from overexposure to that emotionally manipulative nonsense. Eventually, I must have passed out in a defensive move we call “napping.” (Full disclosure: In case I was making it all up, I confirmed this account with my sister and her actual response was, “I’m pretty sure [I did it] just to torture you.” Sisters, man. Cruel.) But “Hello” is different. I’ve listened to that song a truly heinous number of times since its debut and my heart still aches when she belts “Hello, it’s me.”
Listen 1
This is clearly a song best-listened-to for the first time in private, where you can ooh and aah over Adele’s baller coats and ability to look ludicrously royal while traipsing about the countryside without any witnesses, which is why I valiantly waited until I reached the unjudging space of my apartment to pull up the video on Youtube.
It was worth that wait, obviously. My first listen/viewing of the video went along the lines of:
00:00 – 00:35: What the hell? Why is there a minute of intro? I do not care for this.
00:36 – 00:40: Can I get my hair to fly in the wind like that?
00:54: Damn, that is a great coat.
01:15 – FINALLY THERE IS MUSIC.
01:25 – FINALLY THERE ARE WORDS. And, OK, yeah, I can work with this.
02:25 – Shit.
06:00 – Adele for President.
Listen 2
Surely it wasn’t that good? Better give it another go just to be sure.
(Six minutes and 6 seconds later)
Yes, it is that good.
Listen 4
HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIDEEEEEE – belted into a wooden spoon as I boil pasta.
via vox.tumblr.com
Listen 5
Oh hey the second time she says “Hello from the outside,” nice.
credit: fallontonight.tumblr.com
Listen 7
THIS HAS TO STOP. I HAVE TO STOP. MY NEIGHBORS PROBABLY WANT ME TO STOP.
via killaidanturner.tumblr.com
Listen 12
CAN’T STOP. WON’T STOP.
HELLO FROM THE OUTSIDEEEEEEE – crooned into my pasta bowl while Adele serenades my carb-heavy dinner for one.
Listen 15
Upstairs neighbor goes clomping up the stairs. I spare a second to consider turning the music down, but clearly Adele wins and he’ll just have to get over it.
Listen 17
IT’S SO TYPICAL OF ME TO TALK ABOUT MYSELF I’M SORRY – warbled off-key while washing dishes, vaguely worrying that my neighbor can actually hear my Christina Perri–levels of belting.
Listen 20
Neighbor definitely pauses in his thumping down the stairs. There’s a pretty good chance Adele is audible through my door.
Listen 25
Adele is my life now.
We had to wait four years for a new Adele album, but it was well worth it: Her voice is still a showstopper. Her eyeliner still looks like it has the power to take flight with the graceful arc of those wings. The raw emotion in her songs still comes across as organically and realistically (and so many other adjectives that I could be here all day listing them) as ever.
And so, I bring this tale to a close. I hope you listened along and fell under Adele’s spell once more—I know that I have. If you need me, I’ll be over in the corner searching for the perfect faux fur coat and trolling country estate listings on FlipKey.
