We are currently 2and a half weeks out from the release of Adele’s 4th studio album 30. For the month of November i’m going to be listening to all of Adele’s albums and breakdown the history of her discography so far. Culminating with a review of the album 30. This week I am covering Adele’s second studio album “21”.
*For these reviews ill be going over each song and talk about subjects like its length, imagery, music video, and creation process. I will then give it my own ranking out of 1–10 and decide weather or not id put it in a playlist or not. All of these rankings are that of my own opinions.
“21” was Adele’s second studio album. It was recorded between May 2009 to October 2010, and released on January 24th 2011. The album features 10 original tracks, one cover and one original bonus track distributed by XL Recordings and Columbia Records. “21” charted in 35 different countries, and charted #1 in 29 of those 35 countries. It also earned a combined total of 146 certified platinum titles, 9 certified diamond titles, and 3 certified gold titles across 36 different countries. Adele received a total of 29 nominations across many music industry awards shows, were she took home the award 21 out of those 29 times.
1: “Rolling In The Deep”
Length: 3:49
Written By: Adele Adkins, Paul Epworth
Composed By: Paul Epworth
Review: The first song on the album goes into the emotions Adele feels after a breakup. How she had her former partners back and how she wishes for him to be miserable, while she prospers after he broke her trust. This song is arguably one of the most iconic songs of the past decade due to how successful it was worldwide. It has also been one of my favourite Adele songs since i was little due to its ability to not get old from its catch lyrics that most can relate to and its easy to “bop to” beats and tempos used throughout the song.
Rating: 9/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes (Un-skip able)
2: ”Rumour Has It”
Length: 3:43
Written By: Adele Adkins, Ryan Tedder
Composed By: Ryan Tedder
Review: The second song on the album goes into depth about the rumours Adele would have to hear from her friends after the release of her first album. Themes referenced within this song include jealousy, and gullibility. For this song i personally like the usage of harsher percussion sounds due to its ability to give the song some roughness and brashness from Adele’s usual soft melodies. These instrumentals give me the feel that Adele’s projecting that all these rumours used to break her down, make her stronger instead.
Rating: 8/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes
3: “Turning Tables”
Length: 4:10
Written By: Adele Adkins, Ryan Tedder
Composed By: Jim Abbiss
Review: The third song on the album draws inspiration from a fight Adele had with a previous lover on the streets of New York. The name “Turing Tables” specifically came from the fact that the fight between Adele and her lover started at a Chinese restaurant that have lazy susan’s. For this song i can feel Adele’s emotions from her vocals and lyrics about how she felt being in that emotionally violent relationship. I feel that these emotions are then heightened by the usage of softer sounds from a piano and violin, which compliment her voice really well. I believe that so far throughout Adele’s discography that I've reviewed this is the most beautiful song on it.
Rating: 8/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes
4: “Don’t You Remember”
Length: 4:03
Written By: Adele Adkins, Dan Wilson
Composed By: Rick Rubin
Review: The forth song on the album delves into the feelings and realization that sometimes after a breakup, you feel bitter towards the person you once loved for all of their flaws, while not bothering to acknowledge her own. Adele quotes this song with saying how that after the relationship referenced within the song ended, she forgot why she loved that person, and why they loved her back after she was consumed by the bitterness. My favourite part of this song is the changes of instrumentals between the verses (which use softer sounds from a acoustic guitar and cymbals), to the usage of a full drum set, piano, violin, and acoustic guitar to rise until the final chorus of the song (the climax of the song). These instrumentals then reminds me of some of the song from Adele’s first album “19”.
Rating: 6.5/10
Playlist Worthy: Maybe
5: “Set Fire To The Rain”
Length: 4:01
Written By: Adele Adkins, Fraser T.Smith
Composed By: Fraser T.Smith
Review: The fifth song on the album delves into Adele’s experiences being in a rebound relationship. At the beginning of the song imagery of “the honeymoon phase” of relationships are used, however as the song progresses the imagery shifts into hatred and corruption when she comes to realize all of the original promises made in the relationship were all just lies. This song is also one of Adele’s iconic songs in her discography, as well as one of my personal favourites. Although I personally don’t relate to the lyrics of the song, when i listen to it I get the feel of anger towards a past parter, which heighten throughout the catchy chorus that makes me want to scream out the lyrics to get back at my imaginary ex-partner.
Rating: 9/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes (Un-skip able)
6: “He Won’t Go”
Length: 4:37
Written By: Adele Adkins, Paul Epworth
Composed By: Rick Rubin
Review: The sixth song on the album is about the relationship between two of Adele’s friends she made after the release of “19”. The inspiration came from these two friends specifically due to Adele’s amazement about how the couple worked together to get the one friend clean of drugs, with imagery of unconditional love used throughout the song. This song i found suprised me due to it being different from Adele’s previous dicography due to the beat drawing a lot of influences from 80’s and 90’s American soul and RnB. However I do really like the song because these types of beats and tempos compliment Adele’s vocals pretty well, and break up the continuous usage of modern soul sounds from the previous songs on the album.
Rating: 8.5/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes
7: “Take It All”
Length: 3:48
Written By: Adele Adkins, Francis White
Composed By: Jim Abbiss
Review: The seventh song on the album delves into the emotions of feelings of loneliness and abandonment after the end of a relationship. With the main theme being the scenario that no matter how emotionally or physically abusive that the relationship is, once its over you second guess yourself due to the feelings of loneliness and abandonment. For this song, I like how Abbiss produce the song to start right at the one second mark, with the first lyrics referencing the title of the song. This song reminds me a bit of the soundtrack from the Disney movie “Princess and the Frog” due to Adele’s vocals having similar pitches and tones from a lot of the singers on the soundtrack. Overall a nice easy listening song.
Rating: 7/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes
8: “I’ll Be Waiting”
Length: 4:01
Written By: Adele Adkins, Paul Epworth
Composed By: Paul Epworth
Review: The eighth song on the album serves as an apology towards all of Adele’s previous exes she made have hurt from her previous songs. In this song she goes on about how each breakup has made her better both as a person and as a better singer-songwriter. Overall from this song I get a lot of vibes from 1970’s and 1980’s pop and soul beats, which compliments the album decently. The lyrics are also very catchy and easy to sing to.
Rating: 7.5/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes (Would be a great as background sound)
9: “One And Only”
Length: 5:48
Written By: Adele Adkins, Dan Wilson, Greg Wells
Composed By: Rick Rubin
Review: The ninth song on the album delves into the beginning of a new relationship, and the “butterfly” feelings (excitement and nervousness) surrounding it although some might have been it that situation before. The lyrics for this song I find to be quite relatable to most (including myself and my inexperience) because I believe Adele was able to describe how these feelings can be heighten after every experience with the new partner, with every next lyric. However I personally find that the song is about a minute longer then what it should be. Overall also a nice easy listening song.
Rating: 6.5/10
Playlist Worthy: Maybe
10: “Lovesong” (COVER)
Length: 5:16
Written By: Robert Smith, Lawence Tolhurst, Siamon Gallup, Boris Williams, Pearl Thompson, Roger O’Donnell
Composed By: Rick Rubin
Review: This tenth song in the album is a cover of “Lovesong” by The Cure. Adele said she chose to cover the song due her listening to it when she was homesick working in Malibu for the album. Adele later goes on to dedicate this cover to her mother. Through this song, although it uses simple vocals and instrumentals compared to other sadder songs in her discography, I can still feel her pain and sadness of being homesick and missing the people closest to her.
Rating: 7.5/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes
11: “Someone Like You”
Length: 4:45
Written By: Adele Adkins, Dan Wilson
Composed By: Adele Adkins, Dan Wilson
Review: The eleventh song on the album delves into the emotions felt after the relationship comes to a close and both people get the closer that they need to move on to new relationships within there lives. This song is also very iconic in Adele’s discography. Although I have never felt the same emotions the song is referencing, I have always found this song to be the type of song that I want to scream the lyrics to, to release my emotions. I also love how Adele expresses her emotions throughout the shakiness and imperfectness of her vocals, which heightens the listeners emotions as well, sympathizing with her.
Rating: 8.5/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes
12: “I Found A Boy” (Bonus Track)
Length: 3:37
Written By: Adele Adkins
Composed By: Rick Rubin
Review: The twelfth and final song on the album delves into the emotions felt after being healed from a previous relationship and being ready to move on to a new one. With this song, I get a lot of vibes of softer country music from the past decade. Which I think is drawn back from the usage of the simplistic tunes of the guitar in the instrumentals. I also like the switch between only Adele’s vocals and only the instrumentals between the choruses and verses.
Rating: 8/10
Playlist Worthy: Yes
My Conclusions:
Overall, I can understand the success of Adele’s second studio album from how detailed and thought out the lyricism and composing of each song are. From what I've reviewed so far Adele experience over the years compliments each new album very nicely as well. Although well all now that this was only one piece of Adele’s career so far.
Overall Score: 7.8/10
References:
Authors Notes:
Thanks for reading my music review! Over the corse of November ill be covering and reviewing all of Adele’s albums culminating after the release of “30”. All material and links used in the article were taken from the web with the intent to be used for educational purposes. All links and photos are not my own.
