"I’m sorry it took so long, but you know, life happened." 
 
 So explains Adele of her years-long departure from the music scene and the long-awaited release of her new album, 25. The singer posted a note on her social media on Wednesday, revealing that, “25 is about getting to know who I’ve become without realizing.” 
 
 LISTEN: Adele May Have Just Sneakily Previewed Brand New Music 
 
 If you’re hoping for more breakup anthems, you may be disappointed. 
 
 “My last record was a break-up record and if I had to label this one, I would call it a make-up record,” Adele writes. “I’m making up with myself. Making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did. But I haven’t got time to hold on to the crumbs of my past like I used to. What’s done is done.” 
 
 The Grammy winner also captioned the note on Facebook, “Hello...,” a nod to the mysterious commercial featuring 30 seconds of one of her new songs that aired during a recent X Factor U.K. episode. 
 
 "Hello, it's me," her very recognizable voice sings in the snippet. "I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet to go over everything. They say that time's supposed to heal ya, but I ain't done much healing." 
 
 WATCH: Are Lady Gaga and Adele Recording New Music Together?! 
 
 Adele first teased her next album back in May of 2014, tweeting, “Bye bye 25... See you again later in the year x.” Many assumed that meant 25 would drop sometime in 2014. Now, over a year later, it’s rumored the album will arrive on Nov. 20, which her return to social media appears to support. 
 
 The rest of the letter is a reflection on turning 25 and becoming an adult, with Adele recalling how she always wanted to be older than she was. “I feel like I’ve spent my whole life so far wishing it all away,” she reveals. “Always wishing I was older, wishing I was somewhere else, wishing I could remember and I wishing I could forget too. Wishing I hadn’t ruined so many good things because I was scared or bored. Wishing I wasn’t so matter of fact all the time.” 
 
 “Turning 25 was a turning point for me, slap bang in the middle of my 20s,” she continues. “Teetering on the edge of being an old adolescent and a fully-fledged adult, I made the decision to go into becoming who I’m going to be forever without a removal van full of my old junk.” 
 
 In other music news, Beyoncé gave her first print interview in years. Here’s what she had to say: ||||| 'Hello,' Adele, it's your fans and they've lost it over your single! 
 
 Early Friday morning, Adele dropped the first single from her new album, 25. And what started off like a cell phone commercial quickly turned into a gut-wrenching, sadness-inducing masterpiece co-starring Tristan Wilds (an actor and singer, seen most recently in 90210) – and featuring some older forms of communication, like the video's classic flip phone. But try not to let that distract you. Check out these lyrics from Hello: 
 
 "Hello from the outside. At least I can say that I've tried to tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heart, but it don't matter. Clearly, it doesn't tear you apart anymore." 
 
 The Twitterverse went so cray! 
 
 ADELE IS MY QUEEN SHES BRINGING BACK THE FLIP PHONE IM IN LOVE WITH HER — ️meme trash (@ugIyprince) October 23, 2015 
 
 "How are you" "ADELE" "but that's not what I as-" "ADELE" "wha-" "ADELE" — lindsay not lohan (@normanisnachos) October 23, 2015 
 
 I'm not even sad but I could definitely spend the day in bed crying with Adele lol — Yahdira Mendes (@IAMxYayaM) October 23, 2015 
 
 Hello It's me I was wondering why after all these tears I click "Repeat" #Adele — Pierpaolo Episcopo (@p_episcopo) October 23, 2015 
 
 ADELE HAS THE MOST POWERFUL VOICE I HAVE CHILLS S — maddie || 8 (@adidasdinah) October 23, 2015 
 
 If you think the tweets about #Adele are going to go away anytime soon. You are VERY MUCH MISTAKEN!! pic.twitter.com/BEMJF3GJjB — LORD R.L.S⚔ (@Lord_RLS) October 23, 2015 
 
 And Lena Dunham loved it too! 
 
 already/forever @adele A video posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Oct 23, 2015 at 12:58am PDT 
 
 You can get more sadness by the songful when the album goes on sale Nov. 20. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1LRhRBZ ||||| It’s finally here! Last night, Queen Adele dropped “Hello,” the debut single from the singer’s forthcoming album 25, and her first new track since she was commissioned to write the theme for the 2012 James Bond flick Skyfall. There has been a lot of hype for this record—it’s a follow-up to 2011’s Grammy-sweeping 21, which also happens to be the highest-selling album of the past decade—without much more than a list of rumored collaborators to show for it. (Back in August, Billboard reported that Danger Mouse, Max Martin, Tobias Jesso Jr. and “Rumour Has It” songwriter Ryan Tedder had worked on new music with Adele; that story and a few online teases was all that fans had to go on.) But it’s real! In an open letter posted on Twitter earlier this week, the British songwriter apologized for the delay—she’s now 27, for what it’s worth—and described the emotional thrust behind the record: 
 
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 My last record was a break-up record and if I had to label this one I would 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. But I haven’t got time to hold on to the crumbs of my past like I used to. What’s done is done. Turning 25 was a turning point for me, slap bang in the middle of my twenties. Teetering on the edge of being an old adolescent and a fully-fledged adult, I made the decision to go into becoming who I’m going to be forever without a removal van full of my old junk. [...] 25 is about getting to know who I’ve become without realising. And I’m sorry it took so long, but you know, life happened. 
 
 “Hello” itself is a reminder of exactly why Adele so easily outsells her peers. It’s a heart-wrenching ballad about a woman who’s nostalgic for the not-so-distant past: She regrets the way things went down with an ex-lover and wants to apologize, but knows that too much time has passed for her to bother trying to fix it. It’s a soulful easy-listening jam with a thunderous hook—a classic Adele sing-along if ever there was one. Watch the video, which features Mack Wilds (!!!), below. 
 
 Adele’s 25 will be released on November 20th on XL/Columbia. 
 
 
 
 Screenshot from YouTube. 
 
 ||||| This may well become the most famous pop greeting ever, muscling out dear old Lionel Richie. Adele is back, reintroducing herself with a slightly tentative “Hello”. Rarely has a single word been freighted with so much meaning and emotion. From the opening piano chord and that very first hello she sounds nervous, sad, determined. As the biggest pop star of our age arrives back on the stage, there’s no dramatic ta-ra, no thunder of bells and whistles. Rather, she dares to pull the world into her private sphere. 
 
 Why Adele turned to the Swedish pop magician Max Martin 
 
 Hello unfolds slowly. Despite conveying a mood of emotional uncertainty, it’s a supremely confident comeback, a monster ballad that creeps up on the listener, showing a persuasive degree of restraint. It rides on two ominous piano chords, orchestral strings shading the end of the first verse, swelling through the second, before the chorus arrives with a grave blast, the double thump of a bass drum and her voice jumping up a range. As the song circles around, everything gradually steps up a gear, the drums take on a ghostly skitter, a spooky keyboard floats in, backing vocals build until it moves towards a very luscious wall of sound, supporting but not overwhelming Adele’s utterly compelling vocal. A beautiful song of loss and regret, it takes a grip on the kind of memory every listener holds somewhere in their heart and merges it with Adele’s own drama. This sense of everywoman emotion is what people always responded to in Adele, she is a pop diarist, sharing the simple secrets of her heart with no pretence. 
 
 A beautiful song of loss and regret, it takes a grip on the kind of memory every listener holds somewhere in their heart and merges it with Adele’s own drama. 
 
 Everything people like about Adele’s vocals can be heard on this recording: emotional veracity, directness, melodic elegance, a balance of intimacy and fireworks. It is full of phrases that might have just been dropped into a spoken conversation, notably the moment when she acknowledges: “It’s so typical of me to talk about myself.” And then there’s that very unpretentious delivery, where she twists syllables and sounds like someone you might meet at a bus stop suddenly pouring her heart out. The moment that is most purely Adele is when she takes us out of the song by turning the word “anymore” in “any-mow-ow” before rising to plaintive Roy Orbison-esque falsetto, like a cross between an Eastender and a Hollywood diva. 
 
 Credit: © CAMERA PRESS/Jesse John Jenkins 
 
 Written with Greg Kurstin, the California producer who gets everywhere these days (Lily Allen, Lana Del Rey, Years & Years), Hello is a class act, an old fashioned ballad that never hurries, never overdoes it, but delivers the raw, honest feeling that has made Adele a superstar. In today’s overcooked climate of histrionic plastic pop excess, it unfolds like a breath of pure pop oxygen.
– Adele is out with her first new song in three years, and the Internet is decidedly happy about it. Five reactions to "Hello," the first single from Adele's 25, which will be released Nov. 20: "The song [is] a heart-wrenching ballad about a woman who's nostalgic for the not-so-distant past," writes Puja Patel on The Concourse. "It's soulful, easy-listening with a thunderous hook—a classic Adele sing-along if there ever was one. ... [The song] is a reminder of exactly why Adele so easily outsells her peers." "Everything people like about Adele’s vocals can be heard on this recording: emotional veracity, directness, melodic elegance, a balance of intimacy and fireworks," writes Neil McCormick in the Telegraph. "'Hello' is a class act, an old fashioned ballad that never hurries, never overdoes it, but delivers the raw, honest feeling that has made Adele a superstar. In today’s overcooked climate of histrionic plastic pop excess, it unfolds like a breath of pure pop oxygen." USA Today has a roundup of excited tweets, and there are more where those came from. One of our faves, from Hunter Schwarz: "RT if you’re sitting at your desk listening to Adele crying. fav if you’re holding it all in, trying to keep yourself together." It's not just the song itself winning praise: "While the video is intimate, it also has an epic feel to it. That large-scale feeling is likely due to the fact that 'Hello' is the first music video to ever film with IMAX cameras. Leave it to Adele to come back in a major way," writes Vanity Fair's Joanna Robinson, who deems the video "technologically groundbreaking." MTV's headline: "Adele's ‘Hello’ Is Emotional, Heartbreaking And Will Leave You Drowning In Tears." And the deck: "It's just so good." Click to see what Adele has revealed about the rest of the album.