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Music Analysis of ‘Hello’ by Adele
Adele who is an English singer co-wrote the song with her producer, Greg Kurstin. As part of her third studio album (Wikipedia), Hello was released in October 23rd 2015, and upon release, it was already drawing critics and praises all over the musical world based on its style and the artist behind it. Upon release the album topped charts in more than 30 countries and received a response that when first played in BBC Radio 1 the artist could not hide her emotions.
Recorded in London’s Metropolis studios, the song praised to have a similar flow as previous works the artist had themes of nostalgia and regret all through the song. It is also describe as a piano ballad and has a soulful experience with drums included. Having debuted in the Billboard top charts in the USA, the song would then go on to break several records previously set by various artists. Reigning top of the Billboard 100 charts for ten consecutive weeks, the song, which was also Adele’s fourth number one on the charts had become the year’s seventh best-selling and having sold 12.3 million copies by the end of the year 2015.
The song has a moderately slow tempo, this may have seem to have made the song be seen as not entertaining, on the contrary Adele uses the slow tempo to her advantage by creating and narrating her story with her vocal strength at its best. This results in an entertaining creation by the artist, with the beat steady throughout the song, the main focus in the song solely remains on the artist. The song which came after a five year break by the artist to focus on her personal matters, has had most of it sung in a homophonic texture having one voice and a simple line of accompaniment. Although there are times when the song switches to polyphony during the recording.
The song which is almost a five minute record has a perceived low sound and the piano creates a low pitch at the beginning, with the pitch rising when the artist sings the chorus. With the articulation achieved throughout the song, the piano creates a decay effect on the notes, that is, it makes the sounds appear like they are fading out. Adele who has a powerful voice over the song, has a very pure and rich timbre as she has lots of power and control, with the piano aiding again by providing a mellow or sombre chord, as only two chords are played all through the song.
The song, which has soulful touch, is largely considered under a ‘Pop music’ genre. It also has some derivations from rock and roll genre. The music which starts of slowly in the first stanzas, has the artist coming in hard with forte singing in the chorus. The dynamic switches all over the song contributes majorly to the masterpiece effect received by the song.
Structurally, ‘Hello’ is a classic piano ballad coupled with nice harmonic motion worked in. The intro is two bars long and has stated the structure of the chord that makes the better part of the song. After the intro, the song hits quite a long verse that has two symmetric eight bar sections in it. With the first time the song diverts from the main chord structure, comes in the pre chorus, which is very enharmonic to the verse and chorus chords, although they provide enough departure to the chorus. The chorus then hits, mirroring the verse in structure and chords. Although it is a new melody over the same material, it feels like it is new. The bridge has eight bars and the chords based on it are the pre chorus chords having the same arrangement as the chorus. This is then followed by a sixteen bar chorus with the outro being a bookend of the intro with a cool reverb effect on the last piano chord.
Taking the production of the song into consideration, not much of the extra ordinary is being realised as nothing new is observed from the previous Adele records. With the great piano played and some drums beats played with the piano, the sound could not set a better tempo for the song. The richness in the singers voice adds to the masterclass piece that many may say only Adele can give.
With airplay records, streaming and video viewing records broken within weeks, the media also had not to be left behind, with people and fans taking part in the “Hello challenge” trending on social media platforms all over the world. The video of the song also had the much quality as the audio of the song had presented. Having a precedent sombre mood, the video showed exactly how it was with dull and lonely set up being shown everywhere.
A good work of production and creativity cannot go unnoticed, this said, the song would later go on and receive multiple nominations, among them notably being MTV music awards and the Grammys, which it would later win, adding to the already growing collection of the artist’s Grammy collections.
The media can never be left behind and in her interviews, Adele spoke about writing the song and also described that part of the song being about her previous love life, although she was not very specific. She also spoke about the song being a connection to her past and also a connection to her fans who would use the song to connect to her.
Giving credit to the production team for having synchronised all the finer details of the song into one magnificent piece. It goes without saying that such magnificent piece of production would certainly take time and be remembered on the airwaves for a very long time to come. This can already be seen by the various covers already produced from the one song, all covers and remixes being synchronised into the different genres of music.
Not forgetting the talent behind the voice in the song, we have to give the deserved credit behind the production team. The harmony created by them may live to be remembered for a very long time to come. Adele, known for her previous masterpiece creations, for sure made a statement despite her silence over the past five years since her last creation before this one, she reminded us of what she is capable of and whether she goes silent for some time again, we will never forget how she graced our ears with the Hello tune.
Work Cited
Ford, Grant Davidson. “Adele’s Hello: Harmonic Ambiguity & Modal Inflection in Contemporary Pop.” Popular Music Studies Today. Springer VS, Wiesbaden, 2017. 111-118.
“Hello (Adele Song).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Sept. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_(Adele_song).
pureMix. “Mix Analysis: Hello – Adele.” Mix Analysis: Hello – Adele | PureMix.net, PureMix, 21 Aug. 2020, www.puremix.net/mixcheck-mix-analysis/hello-adele.html.