Adele: Incredible singer, crap gift-giver.
During an interview with Radio 1 host Nick Grimshaw in London yesterday, Harry Styles revealed that the Grammy-winning star once gifted him a copy of her own album for his birthday. That's one way to save yourself a trip to the mall, we suppose.
"For my 21st she gave me one of her albums, 21, and said: ‘I did some pretty cool stuff when I was 21, good luck,'" Styles, who is releasing the first single, "Sign Of The Times," from his debut solo album tomorrow, told Grimshaw. "I was like... geez.”
"Geez" as in, wow, this vocal goddess took the time to remember my birthday and I'll treasure this always? Or "geez" as in, hmm, yes, I know you're super-successful but thanks for the reminder and well done for making my special day all about you?
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Listen, just about anyone would faint if Adele so much as handed them a wad of chewing gum from her mouth. She's Adele. And maybe she was simply trying to motivate the boy-bander with her note. Like, "I made 21 my bitch and so can you!"
On the other hand, it's a little bit like the time your boss wrote a book, and gave everyone in the office a copy in lieu of an end-of-year bonus. Or when your mum took that candle-making class and now exclusively gifts lopsided columns of wax for any and all occasions. Or when POTUS fires up Twitter to remind us how great he is.
But who are we to judge? Styles, now 23, clearly didn't see any passive-aggressiveness in the gesture. He had nothing but praise for the superstar.
"I think she leads by example," he said. "She's the biggest, she's amazing, she's the best so she should be the biggest. The thing with her is she's a different thing, she's just good at it. I like how she does everything, it looks very nice."
Eloquent as always. So, how did 21 go for this young gent?
Styles turned 21 in February 2015. A month later, Zayn Malik left One Direction in a very dramatic fashion. That November, the whittled-down boy band released Made in the A.M., which charted well but ultimately got pipped to the title of fastest-selling album of 2015 in the U.K. by — wait for it — Adele. She released the hugely successful 25 one week after Made in the A.M. Now that's some epic trolling.
Of course, if Harry doesn't score a copy of 25 in two years, we're going to be majorly bummed. Once you've started, you can't just stop.