ADELE RULES iTUNES IN 85 COUNTRIES (UPDATE)

We knew it was coming, but it was still stunning to wake up this morning, open iTunes and see Adele’s face staring out from the top of the welcome page, the singles chart and the album chart—and then to realize people all over the planet are having precisely the same experience today.

You'll be unsurprised to learn that single "Hello" has topped the iTunes chart in 85 countries, while 25 hit #1 in 77. The XL/Columbia album is, as you may be aware, due out on 11/20. The video for "Hello" has been viewed more than 3 million times as of this writing, but expect those numbers to balloon madly.

The sales campaign for Adele’s third album 25 begins today, with preorders now open and first single “Hello” out after premiering during an interview on Nick Grimshaw’s BBC Radio 1 show this morning. It's the follow-up to the British singer's 11m+ selling 21 and is out via XL/Columbia on 11/20. Is she nervous?

“It’s a write-off to expect anything close [to the sales of 21 with 25]," Adele told Grimshaw. "It was phenomenal what happened, but it was a phenomenon. For a little while I was quite frightened by it and getting into the headspace of writing a new record I found really difficult.”

"Hello,” set for a surefire worldwide #1 next week, was written with Greg Kurstin, a Yank who produced much of Sia’s 1000 Forms of Fear. The track was inspired by a yearning for the past. “A lot of stuff in my life has changed and not because of my career,” Adele explained. “I found myself yearning for my past for no reason other than it had gone. It’s about relationships with people that I love, we have all got our own lives going on. I needed to write that song so they’d all hear it.” The vocals for the chorus were perfected during a recording session in LA earlier this year.

25 is all about growing up, and it took a long time to write, said Adele (21 was released in 2011). “I felt like this was never going to happen, I was never going to finish this record, it was a long process. I thought I ran out of ideas and lost my ability to write a song. But my team were amazing, they’d tell me to go back to the drawing board if something wasn’t good enough. My biggest fear the whole time I’ve been writing is that I wrote songs that I didn't believe myself. My biggest thing is I want people to believe me. It’s been a really long time coming and I’m excited for people to hear the album.”

“When We Were Young” is another hit to look out for from the LP, which was written with Canadian musician Tobias Jesso Jr. There are no plans for a world tour as yet, an undertaking Adele has avoided in the past.

But for now it’s all about “Hello,” and that is some chorus—it’s like she’s belting it out from the eye of Hurricane Patricia. Take a look and listen.