Adele unexpectedly played about 40 seconds of new single “Easy On Me” for fans Saturday afternoon (Oct. 9).
The singer had an hour to kill before an interview, so she hopped on to Instagram Live to chat. Toward the end of her time logged on with fans, she gifted those tuning in with a taste of the new ballad.
“There ain’t no gold in this river/ That I’ve been washing my hands in forever/ And there is hope in these waters/ But I can’t bring myself to swim when I am drowning in this silence/ Baby, let me in,” Adele can be heard singing in the snippet.
Some familiar names popped up in the chat as thousands of followers joined in to listen. Alicia Keys chimed in with a fitting “snippet vibes” comment, while Ben Platt expressed the general excitement of the room with “ITS HAPPENING.”
Adele — who was a bit distracted by her two new dogs and trying to figure out how to add another Instagram user to her live session — stared in wonder at the stream of questions coming in ahead of playing “Easy On Me,” which is set for an Oct. 15 release. The track is the first new music to be heard from the star in nearly six years and is expected to be on her next album, which fans believe could be titled 30 based to mysterious billboards that recently popped up around the world.
Besides giving fans a sneak peek of “Easy On Me,” Adele answered a number of random questions as they appeared in the chat stream.
Many questions, of course, were centered on her upcoming album, but she didn’t want to “give too much away” yet.
“I do have a favorite song from the new album,” Adele teased. “But I’m not gonna tell you what it is ’cause you don’t have the track list yet.”
“I’m excited to get it out into the world at last,” she added.
Adele vaguely revealed that the album is “dropping soon. Don’t you worry,” and although she’d previously said the new album isn’t necessarily a “divorce record,” during Saturday’s Instagram Live she did say it’s based on “divorce, babe. Divorce.”
Also of note: Adele had some kind words for Britney Spears — “Of course I support #FreeBritney. I love Britney. Met her a couple times. I absolutely adore her. Really happy for her,” she said — and decided that her favorite album of 2021, so far, is Drake’s.
Adele’s previous studio album, 2015’s 25, sold 3.38 million copies in its debut week in the U.S., which was the biggest sales week of an album since Nielsen (now MRC Data) began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991. That impressive number brought the fun fact that 25 sold about 335 copies per minute in the U.S. during its first week on sale.
Watch a clip of the “Easy on Me” song preview, followed by a recording of her full chat with fans, below.
