Fans Are Pumped About Adele's Cryptic New Instagram Post

• Today, denizens of Instagram were given a rare treat in the form of a rare post from Adele.
• The singer shared a truly stunning photo of herself performing on stage as confetti falls around her. The pic's simple caption—a single smiley face emoji—made the entire post rather cryptic, however.
• Fans quickly began speculating that the post might be a sign that Adele was planning to surprise release her highly-anticipated fourth studio album this weekend, but the singer took to the comment section to shut down the rumors personally.

When Adele posts on Instagram (opens in new tab), the world takes note—even when said Instagram post is pretty, well, cryptic.

Today, the singer shared a rare posts to social media in the form of a photo of herself, on stage somewhere and belting out what we can only imagine is a powerful ballad (oh, if only this photo were a video (opens in new tab) and we could hear that angelic voice of hers, but ALAS). In the photo, Adele is looking  (opens in new tab)to the sky while fog rolls in behind her and confetti falls from the sky above her—basically, it looks like the heavens are literally opening up at the sound of her voice, which would track if it were the case, TBH.

Adele didn't give much away with the gorgeous photo, however. She captioned the shot, in which she's wearing a flowy, black dress bedazzled with hundreds of sequins, with a single emoji: "😊."

In the comments, fans were quick to speculate that the glorious photo was a precursor to something even more glorious—like a surprise release of Adele's highly-anticipated fourth studio album (opens in new tab), for example. One such theory personally caught Adele's attention.

"Teaser?" the fan commented on the new pic. "Albums coming out today???!!!! Tell me now!!!!"

Unfortunately for all of us, the new-album-surprise-dropping-today theory turned out to be totally false—according to none other than Adele herself (opens in new tab).

"Of course it's not," Adele replied. "Corona ain't over. I'm quarantining. Wear a mask and be patient. ❤️."

Although the album had long been expected to drop this fall, in September, Adele's manager, Jonathan Dickins, recently confirmed that the record has been officially delayed due to the coronavirus—although it's still unclear for how long.

"It isn’t coming in September, it’ll be ready when it’s ready," Dickins told Music Week (opens in new tab). "We’re all in the same boat, you’re doing stuff and then all of a sudden, the world stops. It’ll come when it’s ready. I can’t put a date on that yet. We have music, but we’re still working."

We'll try to be patient—emphasis on "try."

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