Album Review: Adele's 25

It is not, at this moment in time, possible to stream Adele's new album 25, so I went to Target and bought a physical copy. On a CD. It has some liner notes and everything, which is dope.

25 is no 21, I am afraid. It is natural, when someone says something like this to jump to the wrong conclusion and say "you didn't like 25!" I know this to be true. Some of you with weirdly detailed memories of blogs that you read might remember a little fracas on my facebook wall a couple of months ago where I was accused of being dismissive of Amadeus--on the grounds that I argued that it was an exceptionally weak Best Picture winner, and did not belong on a list of the greatest music movies of all time. But claiming that a film is weak compared to the broader category of Best Pictures is not the same as saying that it is a bad movie. Nor is saying that 25 is no 21 the same as saying that it is a bad album. 21 just happens to be, in my estimation, one of the 10-15 best albums of the current century. Virtually any follow up would have been subject to essentially this same criticism.

With that out of the way, let me say that this is good music. There is a lot to love on this album. You've all heard "Hello" about a million times, and we all agree that it is great, so I won't talk about it besides to say that it is a great way to establish where we have been (it is the closest thing to a "classic Adele song" on 25), and I suspect that is why it is the opening track. Immediately after "Hello" comes "Send My Love," which sounds less like a customary Adele tune than it does like something you'd expect to hear from Ingrid Michaelson (it reminds me of Michaelson's "Everybody" with its upward lilting vocals, and fun little rhythmic shifts). The difference between Adele and Michaelson can, probably, be described in terms of density. Adele's music on her last two albums has had a kind of solidity, it strikes you with an almost physical punch. Michaelson, by contrast, produces music with the solidity of whipped cream. If "Hello" sets you up for contact, "Send My Love" is a judoka's kuzushi--the break of the opponent's balance that immediately precedes the throw. There is no other song on 25 quite like "Send My Love," but there doesn't need to be. The loss of balance at the outset forces the listener into a new kind of readiness, a transformed headspace where the more conventional Adele songs like "Million Years Ago," and "All I Ask" (co-written by Bruno Mars, though the tempo reminds me more of the Five for Fighting guy, I tried to hear Mars' voice in the music, and it just was not at all clear to me where he was).

On the whole the album is a great listen. Adele writes great songs and she has been working on this album, in theory, for almost five years. That it doesn't live up to the standard of its predecessor isn't a fault, it was just an inevitability.

Rating: 3.25/4