“Hello” Adele. Goodbye Taylor.
The video for the British singer’s long-awaited new single, “Hello” – her first video since 2011 – set a new record for Vivo, the top music video platform, racking up 27.7 million views in its first 24 hours. That knocks Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood,” which had 20.1 million views in its first 24 hours in May, out of the top spot.
It a good omen for Adele’s upcoming album 25, due out Nov. 20. High consumer interest can translate to strong sales of physical media – something that’s increasingly rare in today’s streaming music world. And Adele is one of the few consistent moneymakers the music industry has.
“My last record was a break-up record,” Adele wrote about the new album in a note on Facebook last week, “and if I had to label this one, I’d call it a make-up record. I’m making up with myself. Making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did.”
Momentum for “Hello” hasn’t slowed since it debuted Friday, either. The video has now been watched nearly 71 million times. (To be fair to TSwizzle, it has a way to go before its total views get anywhere close to the 598 million views of “Bad Blood”.)
The six-minute video, which was shot using IMAX cameras, features the singer and “The Wire” star Tristan Wilds. The song, like many of her others, deals with heartbreak, relationships and the aftermath of both.
Not only are people responding to the song, they’re also making it a viral hit. There has been no end of discussion regarding Adele’s use of a flip-phone, rather than a modern smartphone. And, perhaps inevitably, it’s also spawning viral comedy video clips, like this one mashing up Adele’s “Hello” with Lionel Richie’s 1983 song of the same name.
Adele and her label, if nothing else, certainly knew how to build suspense for the song. Just over a week ago, a mysterious ad ran during Britain’s X-Factor broadcast that contained just a few lines of the song – but neither the singer nor label would confirm it was her until the day before the single and video were released.
Twitter, not surprisingly, exploded when it collectively saw videos of the commercial – and that obsession has since transferred to the actual video.
Adele’s last effort, 21, sold 11.2 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen Music. It is the tenth-largest selling album since the organization started tracking music sales in 1991 and generated five hit singles
Between Adele and Swift, this has been a banner year for big music videos. Prior to the two sings, the biggest video debut on Vivo was Nicki Manaj’s “Anaconda” from Aug. 2014, which was viewed 19.6 million times in 24 hours, followed by Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” from Sept. 2013, with 19.3 million views.
