The New Adele Song is Not That Great

In this essay I will…

I have been accused – more than once – of being a contrarian. And I will admit that – more than once – this has been true. As a child, I pretended to hate Take That because it just seemed so obvious to be a fan. I still remember the moment a friend spotted the tell-tale poster on the back of my door, turned to me accusingly and said, “I thought you hated Take That!”

I pretended the poster was my sister’s, although why she would have hung it on the back of my door was a mystery to me and, I presume, to my friend, although she dropped the subject. We didn’t know the word “hypocrite”, then, but I was old enough to know that her opinion of me had changed, and not for the better.

Today, I am sure I hold many contrarian views. Don’t we all? A relative of mine doesn’t believe in climate change. I remind myself of that a lot, especially when I am wondering if I am being contrary for the sake of it. At least I believe in climate change.

As an example of one of my semi-contrarian views – I say “semi” because it has become as popular to hold this view as it is not to – is that I am not a huge fan of Sally Rooney’s books. It’s nothing to do with her as an individual; after all, I don’t know her. It’s not even to do with her as a writer; I thought that both Normal People and Conversations with Friends were excellently written.

I just hated them, almost as much as I once pretended to hate Take That. I hated every single character in both books. I didn’t care what happened any of them. Had she ended the story with a blazing house fire that killed them all I would have closed the book and thought, thank God for that.

That would, incidentally, have been a very Rosemary-aged-13 move. I used to write long, sprawling, epic tales – or, at least, what would have been long, sprawling, epic tales, had I not got bored after chapter three and ended with a fire that engulfed everyone and everything in the story. It was the perfect way to put both the characters themselves and me, the exhausted writer, out of our misery.

Today’s moment of contrarianism is related not to Rooney – I didn’t dare express these views around the release of Beautiful World, Where Are You, mostly because there were enough Men on Twitter giving out about her as it was – but about Adele, and her new (long-awaited) single, Easy on Me, and its accompanying video.

That the multi-Grammy-award-winning singer hasn’t released an album since 2015 has a lot to answer for when it comes to the frenzy with which the release of this new single has been greeted, and I am genuinely happy for Adele fans that she’s finally come back – but I also genuinely wish she’d come back with something… else.

There is a fine line between an artist having a “style” and an artist being in a rut of sorts, and I am surely not alone in thinking that this latest crooning ballad sounds, I don’t know, exactly like every other crooning ballad Adele has ever released?! (Perhaps with the exception of Chasing Pavements, the lead single from her debut album, 19.)

“It’s so distinctively Adele!” I’ve heard said of Easy on Me, as if we’re expected to believe that the same-ness of the song is to do with some kind of distinctive Adele style, instead of simply being a reworking of any of her previous hit songs. To be clear: I have sung along, crying, to many an Adele tune in my day. I am not above a self-pitying Adele singalong.

That is all before we get to the video (top). Whose idea was this?! It looks like a fashion shoot from an Irish magazine circa 1995, when slightly dirty, crumpled sheets on the floor were considered avant-garde.

I take issue with the video from a narrative point of view, too. I mean, sure, she’s divorced now and moving out of her house – but she’s also multi-millionaire superstar Adele, so she’s surely not driving herself in a tiny car to her new house. And hasn’t she heard of movers?!

It also appears that Adele is moving into an antiques shop – and not even a particularly upscale one. It reminds me a lot of Gogarty’s, an amazing kind of bric-a-brac shop that once existed on Naas Main St, which was owned by two elderly sisters. They had cats who lived in the shop, and it smelled of antiques and musty fabrics but was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of treasures. I don’t think I ever left without finding something amazing I absolutely, totally needed.

Anyway, Adele lives in Gogarty’s now, which is a weird stylistic choice (Mariah would never). There’s also sheet music flying around in the wind, which is another weird choice. Who would open a window, with loose sheet music in the room? Who would leave that window open, once it became clear that the pages were being strewn around the room, losing any semblance of order they once had.

Imagine walking into that room, right, and seeing your mate Adele sitting in an armchair in what looks like an antique shop, with dirty sheets all over the floor and sheet music blowing around the gaff. I mean, maybe you’d give her some leeway as she has recently gone through a divorce, but you’d also be… at least mildly concerned, wouldn’t you?!

The point of it all is: I am underwhelmed by Adele’s new single. I am confused by the accompanying video. I am slightly perturbed by the furore surrounding the release of both aforementioned pieces of media.

And you know what’s worse? Easy on Me has been on repeat, in my head, for the five days since its release. Damn you, Adele.