Adele’s ’25’: Reviews From Critics
Adele’s 25, her newest, highly anticipated album, hit stores everywhere on Friday. This is the 27-year-old British singer’s first album since she released 21 in 2011. She’s been on break for the last three years raising her son.
To say that this album, which is the first we’ve heard from Adele in three years, is highly anticipated is an understatement. It was expected to smash records and please the ears of listeners everywhere. XL Records has already shipped 3.6 million copies of her CD to stores all over, confident that it will sell, even though CDs haven’t been popular in years.
Adele’s 25 had a large legacy to live up to with all that hype, but according to a number of critics, this album has been deemed a success. One ABC music reviewer gave it five out of five stars, saying:
“With repeated listens it became a relentless earworm that sank in deeper and deeper with each consecutive spin. It didn’t catch me at first, but now I am hooked.”
Another critic from The Guardian discussed how 25 doesn’t seem that different than 21 on the surface. It’s full of piano ballads and soulful choruses that break your heart and make you feel like crying. “Adele is still, metaphorically speaking, planted on her ex’s lawn at 3am, tearfully lobbing her shoes at his bedroom window,” the reviewer stated.
Others claim that this album is one for the books with record-breaking class. “It’s an uneven, too-many-cooks recording, but with enough high points—and some very high points—that it ultimately proves to be a worthy entry to her catalog,” a Wall Street Journal reviewer reported.
The reviews continue to glow with positivity. Vulture reviewed the album as nostalgic, which is perfectly fitting for anyone in their early 20’s as they experience the shift from carefree young adulthood to maturity and responsibility. “Premature nostalgia is a natural part of anybody’s 20s, but on her third full-length, Adele sounds particularly preoccupied with it,” the reviewer noted. “All of this backwards glancing places her not only at odds with her YOLO-crazed, living-for-the-moment contemporaries, but with a larger culture in a current state of arrested development, when with each passing year we seem to be upping the age that it’s socially acceptable to still be living in our parents’ proverbial basement.”
The New York Times also shared an opinion on the new album, stating that “the songs veer from phenomenal to tepid.” He goes on to say that everything comes together in unity in a few places, but not all the songs are as good as they were expected to be. Still, he admits that Adele hasn’t lost her touch, even though contemporary pop has started to move in another direction.
“You want to know if ’25? is any good. It is. It is very good, maybe even excellent, maybe even better than 21,” a Vanity Fair reviewer wrote about the album. “The new record’s mix of classic R&B, timelessly roof-rattling ballads, and contemporary pop is very much in keeping with its predecessor: familiar yet not too familiar, and instantly gripping because it’s all sung by that voice.”
The same reviewer stated that it is “the confessional blockbuster you wanted it to be.” It’s the first CD to sell millions of CDs since NSYNC in 2004.
Reviews continue to stream in less than two days after the release. Viewers are mortified that her newest record won’t be available on streaming services, but it’s great for Adele’s sales, which are set to break UK first-week album sales records.
Adele’s 25 has only been out for a couple of days, but it’s already speaking to people’s souls and smashing the music industry.
[Image via Jason Merritt/Getty Images]
