God, it feels good to cry to Adele again. Today, 30 dropped, and while not an album with bops like “Rolling In the Deep,” it is more of a slow burn. The singer, who has become known as the queen of making us cry, hasn’t put out an album since “25,” which was released in 2015. So, for the last six years, we’ve had to wait to feel the pain of Adele’s music yet again.
With 30, I described it to my roommate as an album that I could listen to while doing things around my home and feel sweet and fine while doing so. It isn’t as heartbreaking as her other albums, but it does have some zingers to really just break us down while we’ve been feeling fine and dandy.
My favorite on the album is easily “I Drink Wine,” with a chorus that goes, “So I hope I learn to get over myself. Stop tryin’ to be somebody else so we can love each other for free. Everybody wants somethin’, you just want me.” So, you know, just a casually cutting lyric in the middle of a song about drinking wine. Just some typical Adele stuff.
The thing is: Adele is a mood (as the kids say). She’s the type of artist that you have to be in a specific mindset to listen to, and when you do, you’re just ready to check out for a little while and cry and relax to her music. 30 fits into that mood perfectly while also showing that Adele is a more mature singer.
We’ve listened to her music from 19, 21, 25, and now 30, and listening to her lyrics and how they’ve all changed with her age has been something that has, personally, been great to grow with. For the most part, I’ve either been the a year or two off or right on the mark (like with 30), and it felt like someone was singing to me and what I was feeling.
Adele, who is 33 years old, mastered the art of singing what she knew and that pain, and that has been incredibly relatable. Will 30 be as commercially successful as 21 and 25? That will be something that will be interesting to see. To be honest, if someone wanted to make a wine delivery service based on 30 because of “I Drink Wine,” I’d definitely subscribe to it.
30 might not be everyone’s favorite, but we can all agree that listening to “To Be Loved” is going to emotionally derail our day and is Adele giving us her emotions right on the page. Maybe we should all just take a moment to prepare a nice bath, have our drink of choice, and listen to Adele’s 30 over and over again to usher in the sad girl autumn in the only way we know how: with Adele.
(image: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for September Management)
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