Adele had the world at “hello.”
After a four-year hiatus, Adele made a comeback by dropping “Hello,” the first single off her upcoming album “25,” bringing back the frenzied craze for the R&B singer.
At No.1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and with 1.1 million downloads within the first week, the song has inspired videos ranging from dog-centric Vines to more traditional covers. The Daily Bruin’s Salus Kim and Ruhee Patel evaluate seven videos to tell you which ones will fuel your “Hello” obsession and which ones you should say goodbye to.
Adele’s first public performance of the song will air on BBC One on Nov. 20. Viewers can then decide if any parody or cover will really compare. (Hint: They won’t.)
DNCE
Joe Jonas is in a band and no, it’s not the JoBros. It’s DNCE, a new pop band that experiments with a punk grunge sound in its Halloween-themed cover of “Hello.” While interpreted as a serious cover, it just might be a joke. Dressed ridiculously as circus clowns with painted frowns, the band members perform their rendition of the sorrowful, dramatic ballad lazily. The Jonas brother whines his way through the lyrics, seeming off rhythm and pitch. Even though this can be attributed to the style they chose for the cover, it does not do the original justice. If you’re looking for a good laugh, pay no attention to the actual music and instead, look to the makeshift keyboard stand, which is actually a shopping cart. It’s so bad, it just might be good.
Conor Maynard
British pop and R&B singer Conor Maynard released a YouTube cover Oct. 27 featuring rapper Anth. Their cover attempts to put a new spin on the hit by including an original rap verse. However, the rap unnecessarily elongates the song and overdominates Maynard’s lighter notes. Maynard’s vocals are clean but low-risk and borderline boring. The explicit rap is jarring and disrupts the original melodic flow as well as the story Adele tries to tell.
Leroy Sanchez
Contrary to DNCE and Maynard’s covers of the song, Spanish-born singer Leroy Sanchez’s take does not stray far from the original elements of the song. With more than 6 million views on YouTube, Sanchez charms listeners with perfectly executed riffs and raw emotion. After debate sprung up on whether he mildly used auto-tune to polish his vocals, Sanchez posted a shortened acoustic version on Facebook. With more than 1 million views, this cover shows Sanchez’s ability to powerfully perform live equally as well as in a professional studio.
Seoul Music High School Student
A Seoul Music High School student took another more traditional approach to the song, demonstrating how Adele’s music reaches audiences across the globe. The video, which includes both English and Korean lyrics on screen, received 3 million views in just two days. The Korean student sings gently in the first half, but by the chorus, belts out strong notes with a classmate’s soothing piano accompaniment. As one of the only currently popular female covers of the song, she may have one of the better tributes because of her similar vocal capacity to Adele and the cover’s overall simplicity.
Pug
https://vine.co/v/eYA53dpMLzv
Captioned “When someone taps you on the shoulder,” this Vine shows a dog turning towards the camera as the melodramatic intro to “Hello” plays in the background. With more than 26 million loops, the little pug pierces hearts with literal puppy dog eyes in just a few seconds. Clearly, the pug is not in the loop, as he slowly and almost confusedly glances towards the camera. Although the video only includes the first word of Adele’s song, it captures the intended heartrending emotion, while simultaneously evoking laughter. It’s like the pug really understands what Adele is singing.
Lionel Richie
Mashing “Hello” with Lionel Richie’s 1984 classic love ballad of the same name, the amusing video has gathered 5.2 million views in a matter of two weeks. The video depicts Richie responding to Adele’s call and as Richie sings “Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?” Adele snaps her flip phone shut and sassily hangs up. The video concludes with Richie dejectedly staring down as he listens to the dial tone. Richie good-humoredly acknowledged this clip on his Instagram account captioned with telephone and gasping emojis.
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres offers a spoof of Adele’s hit that features Drake’s “Hotline Bling” and Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” and provides even more hype for the singer’s comeback. In the segment, DeGeneres pokes fun at the usage of a flip phone in the music video by talking on a bulky, block-like mobile phone from the 1980s. Throughout the video, she complains about bad connections, munches on chips and tells Adele to get to the point. In the end, the comedian splits the screen between Adele and Drake who sings, “You used to call me on my cellphone” until she is left with Richie, whom she ultimately hangs up on. Hopefully, Adele will not leave fans hanging too.
– Salus Kim and Ruhee Patel