Photo Courtesy of USA Today
After six years since the release of her third album, “25,” Adele has made a triumphant return to music with her new album, “30.” The 12-track album currently sits at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and is being hailed by some as Adele’s best work to date.
Adele has experienced many highs and lows during these past six years since the release of “25.” In 2018, Adele married her partner of seven years and the father of her son, Simon Konecki, but after a year together, the couple separated. Adele uses her latest album to reflect on the pain and loneliness she felt following their separation and divorce. With every lyric, Adele is giving a part of herself to her fans, making this her most personal album yet.
The opening track, “Strangers by Nature,” is a beautiful and complex song that shows just how much thought Adele put into the order of her songs. This whimsical and mysterious song feels like an overture to a musical with its various music styles and poetic lyricism. “Strangers by Nature” is Adele in the purest form – a performer that drips emotion with every lyric and note.
Her second song on the album is her single, “Easy on Me.” Compared to the rest of the album, “Easy on Me” is the most similar to the songs on her previous albums. It serves as bait to lure people into the album with the classic Adele sound, before really showing them her range and musical prowess.
“My Little Love,” the third song on “30,” is about Adele explaining her separation with Konecki to her son, making this her most personal song on the album. Adele has always been honest and emotional in her music, but “My Little Love” is a whole new level of raw for Adele. Laced throughout the song are snippets of conversations between Adele and her son where she tells him “I love your dad because he gave you to me.”
While “My Little Love” is one of the sadder songs on the album, Adele makes a sudden jump to a more upbeat tempo with “Cry Your Heart Out.” The song is an unexpected, jazzy turn for the album, showing more of Adele’s range in musical style. While it is stylistically different than the first three songs on the album, the common theme of feeling overwhelmed is present.
Adele transitions into another upbeat song, “Oh My God,” where she moves on a bit from her heartbreak and goes into the feeling of finding unexpected romance following this challenging time. This is best characterized in her lyrics, “Wish that I would let you break my walls / But I’m still spinning out of control from the fall.” Her following song, “Can I Get It,” is similar lyrically to “Oh My God” in that sense.
One of the most anticipated songs of the album, “I Drink Wine,” is a standout. What many assumed would be a fun, upbeat song about drinking wine is actually a song about self-doubt and learning to live with yourself. She sings “So I hope I learn to get over myself / Stop trying to be somebody else / So we can love each other for free.” The six-minute soft ballad was originally intended to be 15 minutes long, and many fans are hopeful that Adele will follow in Taylor Swift’s footsteps and release the extended cut.
“All Night Parking,” “Woman Like Me” and “Hold On” follow “I Drink Wine.” While these songs are beautifully sung and composed, the real powerhouse track on the album is the second to last song, “To Be Loved.” With just a simple piano backtrack, the ballad perfectly highlights Adele’s talents, cementing her as one of the strongest vocalists in the industry.
She closes off her album with “Love Is a Game.” Starting with “Strangers by Nature” and going on this journey with Adele throughout her album, “Love Is a Game” feels like the end of a movie when the screen fades to black and the main character walks into the sunset. It perfectly wraps up this story of heartbreak and healing that Adele has woven into every song on the album.
Adele’s “30” is arguably the best album she has ever created, and it’s easy to tell early into the album that she is no longer the same woman she was when she released “25.” Beyond the changes in her personal life, Adele is experimenting with her music and creating a unique sound that no other artist has. Through “30” she has crafted a narrative based on her divorce that reads like a story across every song. Anyone listening can hear the raw emotion that was poured into this album. Adele’s new sound is exactly what fans have been waiting for, and it will be exciting to see how her music grows along with her in this new phase of her life.
