It’s official: Adele is back!
Following weeks of speculation that she was gearing up to enter a new era in her career by releasing some new music, the singer announced that her new single, “Easy on Me,” will be released on October 15. This marks the first time we’ve gotten new music from the Tottenham native in six years.
Adele teased the song in a black-and-white clip shared to social media on Tuesday, which features the singer inserting a cassette tape into a player as she sits behind the wheel of a car.
After checking to make sure her signature black winged eyeliner is looking right in here rearview mirror, the singer fires up the ignition and starts drive down an open road as a gentle piano melody plays and sheet music flies out the car’s back window.
Of course, given just how long the 33-year-old’s fans have been waitiing for a new release, the short clip racked up millions of views in just minutes.
Fans first started theorizing that Adele was getting ready to drop her first music since her album 25, which came out in November 2015, when mysterious ‘30’ billboards began popping up in cities like London, Berlin, Dublin and Cardiff. Since the singer has named each of her last three albums after the age she was when she wrote them, millions of people immediately knew this had something to do with the “Hello” singer.
On Monday, the Grammy winner changed all of her social media layouts to a turquoise color, which matched the aesthetics of the billboards and further drove speculation. While it’s not clear whether or not her upcoming album will be named 30, we now know she’s gearing up for a big release.
Last year, when she was hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live, the singer said that while she was hard at work on her fourth studio album, it wasn’t quite ready yet.
“I know there’s been a lot of chatter about me just being the host. Like, why isn’t she the musical guest and stuff like that,” she said in her monologue. “And there‘s a couple of reasons: My album’s not finished, and I’m also too scared to do both.”
Since her last body of work, Adele not only got a divorce from husband Simon Konecki after seven years together, but recently began dating sports agent Rich Paul. It’s safe to say she’s got a lot to cover on her next album.