Adele is one of the most essential musical artists seen by Generation Z. The strongly skilled vocalist, lyricist and award-winning singer is the creator behind the many sad-song anthems of our childhoods, including “When We Were Young”, “Water Under The Bridge”, “Someone Like You” and “Hello”.

Adele is known for taking lengthy hiatuses between her albums which are typically named after the age of which they were made. This time gap allows Adele to experiment with herself and gain more life experiences to express within her songs. Since “25”,  fans have waited for her highly anticipated fourth album, known as “30”.

The official cover of Adele’s song “Easy On Me” as a teaser for her new album “30”.

Adele’s album announcement rollout was nothing small. Fans quickly ran around major cities after there were reports that the name “30”, colored in yellow with a blue backdrop, randomly  appeared on landmarks around the world.

After a week of anticipation, Adele took to social media and announced her new single “Easy On Me” would release on Oct. 15, 2021. The post instantly went viral and as of Oct. 20, it has racked up approximately 778,000 likes on Twitter.

Following the viral post, Adele took herself to Instagram Live on Oct. 9 and had an engaging Q&A with fans. This live stream, consisting of funny moments, hints and a snippet of her new single—ran a runtime of forty minutes, the longest fans have seen of this artist in a long time. The most intriguing part of the stream was Adele confirming the album would be inspired by the emotions that came from her recent divorce.

On Oct. 13, after building up hype and social media attention, Adele announced her highly anticipated next album “30” would be released on Nov. 19 of this year. The post came along with a six paragraph introduction by the artist which explains the emotional importance the album had on her life in recent years.

When the track was released on Oct. 15, it instantly blew up radio airwaves and charts. It came along with a visually glorious music video that takes shape as a follow-up to her previous single, “Hello”, which was released in 2015.

“Easy On Me” proves that Adele has never lost her touch. Expanding vocally and taking shape as a piano ballet, Adele’s lyricism and melodies have never been more emotional. The song speaks about her childhood, divorce and the many lessons she was forced to learn throughout the pain.

Adele manages to create a melody worth remembering in “Easy On Me”. It’s a song that is super catchy and easy to get stuck in your head. Even when you reflect on the lyrics, it feels relatable and deep. It’s a track that is compelling, emotional, powerful and real, but also incredibly open and unrelentlessly human.

The track impressively broke the record for most streamed song in a day on Spotify and Amazon Music.

Adele’s return may have been a six year wait, but now that it has finally arrived, it can be agreed that the wait was fully worth it.

Gabe Kanae can be reached at jaedynyoung@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.