British singer Adele said on Friday as she released the first single from the follow-up to her runaway hit album 21 that she had become frightened of its success but had now got over any feeling of needing to repeat it.
“It was phenomenal what happened with that but it is a phenomena so … I can’t really include it in any expectations of anything I do ever again,” the 27-year-old singer said in an interview on BBC Radio One.
The interview was timed with the release of the a first track, Hello, and an accompanying video, from her third studio album 25.
It is her first studio album since 21, which won six Grammy awards and sold 30 million copies worldwide, was released in 2011.
Hello is about a love story gone wrong and features the same powerful voice and emotion of her international blockbuster Someone Like You.
“I’m sorry for breaking your heart/ But it don’t matter, it clearly doesn’t tear you apart anymore,” the 27-year-old sings in the black-and-white video, filmed in the Quebec countryside around Montreal.
The singer told fans in a letter posted on her social media accounts last week that she chose the title because her 25th birthday marked a turning point.
“My last record was a break-up record and if I had to label this one, I would call it a make-up record,” she said.
“I’m making up with myself. Making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did.”
The singer said that with the four-year break, during which she gave birth to her first child, she had to make an effort to get back into songwriting.
“Getting into like the headspace to write a record I found really difficult,” she said.
“Obviously now I’m a parent and also having such a break off I kind of fell out of the habit of writing songs and stuff like that.
“But no, I didn’t feel pressure but also I feel like every album I’m ever going to write is always going to be following 21 … No matter what this record does, my next record is going to be following 21.”
The release of the full album of 25 is set for November 20, her label XL Recordings has said.
