Adele’s Timeless Hit: How ‘Someone Like You’ Forever Altered the Pop Music Landscape 12 Years Ago

It has been over a decade since Adele first made her mark on the music industry with her smash hit single “Someone Like You.” This hauntingly beautiful piano ballad was released on January 24, 2011 as the second single from Adele’s album 21. Immediately capturing the hearts of listeners around the world, “Someone Like You” propelled Adele into global superstardom and permanently changed the pop music landscape. Now, 12 years later, this timeless song remains one of the most beloved and iconic ballads of the 21st century.

The Origins of a Classic

“Someone Like You” was co-written by Adele along with Dan Wilson, an acclaimed singer-songwriter who has penned hits for artists like Pink and Taylor Swift. According to Wilson, the song was written very quickly, with him and Adele composing it in a single afternoon while hanging out in his living room in Hollywood.

The lyrical inspiration came from the breakdown of one of Adele’s real-life romantic relationships. She has described it as being one of the most heartbreaking experiences she has been through. These raw emotions are beautifully captured in the mournful lyrics that give voice to the pain of lost love and the realization that an ex has moved on. “Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,” she belts passionately, articulating the sadness so many have felt at one point or another.

While the themes are universal, Adele’s powerhouse vocal delivery is uniquely hers. She imbues each line with palpable emotion, alternating between her belting full voice and intimate near-whisper. This vocal range allows listeners to feel the highs and lows of her grief. The sparse piano accompaniment highlights the vocals without overpowering them, keeping the spotlight right where it belongs.

An Instant Hit

Within hours of its digital release on January 24, 2011, “Someone Like You” shot to number one on iTunes in both the UK and US. The official music video, featuring a simple black-and-white video of Adele singing the song live, only helped boost the single’s popularity thanks to her raw, stripped-down performance. In the weeks that followed, “Someone Like You” gained traction across radio formats from adult contemporary to pop to triple A.

By February, the single hit number one on charts around the world, from the UK to Australia and essentially everywhere in between. It spent five weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, marking Adele’s first number one hit there. Beyond just topping the charts, “Someone Like You” was absolutely dominating music sales, breaking records along the way. In the UK, it was the first song to sell over a million digital copies. In the US, it was the first to sell three million.

Critical Acclaim for a New Classic

While often times commercial blockbuster hits are panned by music critics, “Someone Like You” was almost universally praised from the start. Reviewers applauded the song’s unflinching emotional honesty and Adele’s jaw-dropping vocals. The song won the Grammy award for Best Pop Solo Performance in 2012 among many other accolades.

Esteemed music critic Greg Kot wrote in the Chicago Tribune that “’Someone Like You’ obliterates whatever’s left of the recent past in pop music and clears away the debris to build something new from scratch.” The New York Times praised it as “a perfect song about imperfection” noting that “Her voice is idiosyncratic in both its richness and its shortcomings — qualities that deepen the angst.” It was hailed as an instant classic, a game changing ballad for the ages.

Lasting Cultural Impact

While many chart-topping songs quickly fade into obscurity, “Someone Like You” has retained its status as a modern standard. It permanently changed Adele’s career trajectory, cementing her as one of the most successful pop artists of all time. It also changed how the industry and listeners viewed pop ballads, paving the way for more emotively vulnerable, vocally-driven songs to succeed.

“Someone Like You” has joined the ranks of the all-time great pop-rock ballads like Roy Orbison’s “Crying” and Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” It has become a go-to selection for TV singing competitions like American Idol, where passionate contestants have performed their own covers to wow the judges. An iconic song like this also gets frequently reinvented by other major artists, with covers done by the likes of Katy Perry, Taio Cruz, and John Legend.

Beyond covers, “Someone Like You” has permeated pop culture through placement in other media. The instantly recognizable piano line has been featured in various TV shows like Gossip Girl and movies like the teen rom-com Valentine’s Day. Saturday Night Live did a now infamous sketch where Emma Stone repeatedly sings a hyper dramatic version of the song.

On YouTube, the official music video has over 1.7 billion views, showing that even a simple video focusing just on Adele’s powerhouse vocal can entrance audiences. Of course the song also remains a mainstay on adult contemporary and pop radio to this day. It manages to sound instantly nostalgic yet timelessly fresh all at once.

The Sentiment Lives On

Though originally released in 2011, it’s clear that “Someone Like You” remains a touchstone ballad over a decade later. Ask most people to name Adele songs and this track will surely top many of their lists. Ask people to name the greatest and most memorable break-up songs and this one will also likely be mentioned frequently.

“Someone Like You” has joined the canon of all-time great pop ballads not just because it was a major commercial success, but because it has truly resonated emotionally with so many listeners through the years. When people go through painful breakups, this song gives voice to those feelings like few others can. The lyrical sentiment and melody seem to capture precisely what so many wish they could say to an ex who has moved on and left them behind.

While styles change and pop music continuously reinvents itself, raw emotional ballads like “Someone Like You” will never go out of fashion. There is something profoundly timeless about great vocal talent paired with lyrics that articulate universal heartbreak. Though Adele herself has evolved stylistically over the past decade, releasing her latest album 30 in 2021, “Someone Like You” remains frozen in time as her unequivocal masterpiece.

This song permanently raised the bar for what a pop ballad could be and do. The sheer scope of its impact on pop culture is impossible to overstate. Clearly Adele created something uniquely resonant and unforgettable with this single. “Someone Like You” forever changed the musical landscape by showing the unparalleled power of an brutally honest, vocally virtuosic ballad, and it will undoubtedly continue impacting generations to come.