Adele releases music video for 'Easy On Me'

The singer's latest single is part of the album '30', which will be released in November

Adele's latest album '30' comes after a break of six years. Photo: Sony Music

Despite its substantial run time of five minutes and 31 seconds, Adele’s Easy On Me is an easy watch and listen. It tugs at the heart strings in the way the British singer-songwriter mastered with Hello and Someone Like You.

The new single, which was released in the early hours of Friday morning, also features all the endearing tropes found in an Adele music video – from billowing leaves, curtains and torn-out sheets of paper, to a house in disarray.

What’s different this time, though, is the disorder in the artist’s personal life, which is reflected in the lyrics and the pain threading through her sonorous voice. Easy On Me represents the “absolute mess and inner turmoil” the singer experienced during her 2019 divorce from charity chief executive husband Simon Konecki, with whom she has a son.

The singer has also said that 30 – the album that Easy On Me is a part of and that is expected to be released on Friday, November 19 – narrates how “I painstakingly rebuilt my house and my heart”. And this first single is evocative of her rebuilding journey: You can’t deny / How hard I’ve tried / I changed who I was / To put you both first / But now I give up.

Easy On Me has already raked in nearly eight million views on YouTube, while Adele’s friends and peers posted messages of praise and pride alike.

From Drake (“One of my best friends in the world just dropped a single”) and Lil Nas X (“I feel like I’m 15 again”), to Alicia Silverstone “Go easy on me Adele … you always make me cry”), the reception has been almost as emotional as the ballad itself.