Adele saves with Hello

There is something happening right now that I think says a lot about the true state of the music industry. It is now Nov. 11. There are only 43 days left until Christmas Day and no major artist, and this includes homegrown Pinoys, has released a new Christmas album.

I used to look forward to the arrival of the Christmas albums every year. This used to be one of the highlights of the last quarter when Holiday shopping boosts sales figures for merchants everywhere. How I enjoyed finding out if the new release would become a Christmas staple to be listened to year after year. Some of those of recent times were by Rod Stewart, Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban and Kelly Clarkson.

From some years ago, I recall several blockbusters that resulted in hefty bonuses for the sales people. Remember when record players resounded with Michael Jackson’s Give Love On Christmas Day from the Jackson Five Christmas Album? What about Merry Christmas Darling by The Carpenters or even our very own Jose Mari Chan’s Christmas In Our Hearts?

No Christmas song of the same timeless, wide-ranging appeal has surfaced to this day this year. I guess this means that nobody thought producing a Christmas album this year would be a good business move. Thank heavens we have more than enough Christmas sounds from the past to make up for this lack. As for the music industry, it should thank Adele for deciding to release a new song and album this year.

Very quietly, with no fanfare whatsoever, Adele released the new single Hello last Oct. 22. The music was old school soul ballad. The message was nothing new or earthshaking. Everybody must have surely encountered situations that call for lyrics like “I must have called a thousand times to tell you I’m sorry for everything I’ve done.”

But that must have been it. Adele’s lyrics touched chords with everyone. It was a real tearjerker of a song. People saw themselves in Hello and they reacted by listening again and again and again and eventually in getting their own copies. And they did not only listen. They also watched the music video.

Cleverly done in black and white and employing props like an isolated phone booth and a rotary phone, the video crossed over age brackets. The kids watched Adele. Their parents and grandparents watched, too, and were reminded of their own heartbreaks in an earlier time.

As of this writing, Hello had been downloaded 1.1 million times, viewed on YouTube 236 million times and streamed for 73 million times. If she gets the public into the habit of buying music again, then she will have really saved the recording industry.

Adele’s latest single topped Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart upon release, effortlessly keeping Justin Bieber away from the top spot. But then Justin have two songs in the Top 10. In the Top 5 actually, and that also counts for something. Here are the Top 20 releases in the list:

Hello by Adele; Sorry by Justin Bieber; Hotline Bling by Drake; The Hills by The Weeknd; What Do You Mean? also by Bieber; Stitches by Shawn Mendes; Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift; 679 by Fetty Wap feat. Remy Boyz; Locked Away by R. City feat. Adam Levine; Can’t Feel My Face by The Weeknd; Watch Me by Silento;

Ex’s & Oh’s by Elle King; Like I’m Gonna Lose You by Meghan Trainor feat. John Legend; Jumpman by Drake and Future; Here by Alessia Cara; Downtown by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Eric Nally, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Caz; Lean On by Major Lazer and DJ Snake feat. Moe; Same Old Love by Selena; On My Mind by Ellie Goulding; and Renegades by X Ambassadors.

Top titles

And now here are the Top 20 titles in the albums chart and there is a new No. 1 seller that should send the members of One Direction quaking in their boots. Here goes the list:

Sounds Good, Feels Good by the Australian boy band 5 Seconds of Summer; Storyteller by Carrie Underwood; Beauty Behind The Madness by The Weeknd; Fetty Wap by Fetty Wap; Reloaded: 20 #1 Hits by Blake Shelton; What A Time To Be Alive by Drake and Future; 1989 by Taylor Swift; Pentatonix by Pentatonix; Revival by Selena;

Cinema by Andrea Bocelli; 21 by Adele; I Changed A Lot by DJ Khaled; Confident by Demi Lovato; Tangled Up by Thomas Rhett; Kidz Bop 30 by The Kidz Bop Kids; Kill The Lights by Luke Bryan; Title by Meghan Trainor; Montevallo by Sam Hunt; Handwritten by Shawn Mendez; and Another Country by Rod Stewart.