It’s been a long wait for fans, but Adele’s first new single since 2012’s Skyfall released on Friday. Out of sight (or hearing, in this case) usually means out of mind, but clearly no one forgot about the British songstress. After crushing records with Hello, Adele is set to perform on the Nov. 21 episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Matthew McConaughey.
SNL struck while the iron was hot, locking down a musical guest who has been burning up the Internet. Vevo announced that in the first 24 hours after Hello — the first single from her upcoming album, 25 — was released, the distributor’s video on YouTube was viewed over 27 million times. According to Vocativ, her total views in that period is a Vevo record, easily topping runners-up Bad Blood by Taylor Swift (20.1 million views) and Anaconda by Nicki Minaj (19.6 million). In terms of YouTube views, Hello even managed to top the new widely watched trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as The Atlantic pointed out.
Hello is also currently on track to break a one-week digital sales, reports Billboard; sources say the single sold around 450,000 downloads in its first two days. The record, currently held by Flo Rida’s Right Round, is 636,000. That means Adele needs to sell roughly 186,000 more downloads before the period ends on Oct. 29, but given that she’s Adele, it seems totally doable.
With her SNL performance not until November, it won’t help the singer toward the first-week record, but it should boost album sales. She’s scheduled to appear on the show the day after her album drops, almost five years after her last, 21. For all that she’s made us wait, it’s no wonder that fans have been so excited about Hello.
Adele’s upcoming album, 25, is set to release on Nov. 2o. In the meantime, check out the official Hello video below.
