Adele - Someone Like You

Music video by Adele "Someone Like You" - Dir: Jake Nava

Adele’s “Someone Like You” is my shit – a gigantic, stormy ballad in which the young singer reveals the full operational power of her voice and, at the same time, navigates the interpersonal dynamics of a bad breakup with grace and maturity. It’s really something. And as a recent Village Voice piece points out, it’s also the first ballad to ascend to #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in a long time. Even more impressive: It did this without the help of a music video.

For some reason, though, we suddenly have a video now. It’s a nicely show grainy black-and-white clip, with most of it consisting of a single shot of Adele walking around Paris and looking sad. And it does its job by placing the focus on the song, where it belongs.