Seems like the whole world is anticipating the imminent return of Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE as online chatter regarding a new single and album kicks into overdrive.

In a since-deleted tweet that was immediately reposted by an Adele fan group, a Canadian DJ claimed that new material was coming this week. That tease appeared amid a massive buzz generated by the presence of a snippet from her 2015 mega-smash, “Hello,” in a ubiquitous spot for Tom Brady’s return to Foxboro on NBC’s 10/3 Sunday Night Football telecast.

There’s a growing belief around the industry that a new single will drop sooner than later as handicappers place wildly varying guesses on how big Adele’s long-awaited follow-up to 25 could be in a radically changed, streaming-powered marketplace. Her past commercial triumphs were driven by sales of physical product and digital downloads (1.5m+ on the last LP), which have significantly diminished in importance during the last six years.

But no one doubts that Adele will be everywhere this fall given the size of her fanbase and the reaction “Hello” has been getting merely by appearing in an NFL commercial.

One thing that gets lost in all this analysis of platforms and demographics is that people have been feeling emotionally bottled up like crazy for the last two years, and Adele makes the most emotionally cathartic pop music in the long history of the genre. If the sturm und drang of her personal life comes out full force in the new material, it will present a rare opportunity for people to have the good cry they’ve been longing for. It’s impossible to say what that translates to in 2021 numbers, but if it resonates—and we strongly suspect it will—Adele’s new music will have a lane all to itself.

Hello from the other side. @TomBrady returns to New England this Sunday night.

ðŸŽµ: @Adele pic.twitter.com/EmISjoZwrh
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) September 28, 2021