How Adele’s 21 set the standards for top-notch music
But rumor has it he’s the one I’m leaving you for
There’s a fire, startin’ in my heart.
This is how Adele Adkins, a reputed but underrated 21 year old Brit, opened up one of the most monumental albums of this decade.
Reflecting back, this was a pretty big deal for music.
It’s late 2011.
Katy Perry is riding the success of her sophmore album Teenage Dream and Bruno Mars is stealing hearts with his emotional hit Grenade. On the other side of the pond however, at a small Indie record label, a young and talented British songstress is recording music that would change the industry.
It had been two years since Adele had won her Grammy for best new artist after her debut release 19. With iconic tracks like Chasing Pavements and with her vintage aesthetic, she was quickly becoming a force to reckon with. However, she still had something to prove. She had to make her mark, and oh boy did she do.
Rolling In The Deep was the lead single of her upcoming second studio album 21. Released on 29th November of that year, the song wasn’t expected to make as much of an impact.
They were wrong.
The song opens with a set of rapid strums that immedeately induce tension and excitement into the listener. For the first few seconds, its just the strums and her commanding voice that dominate the song. Just when the strums begin to get monotonous, a set of rhythmic drums invigorate and fuel the raging ballad, Adele’s powerhouse vocals complimenting the production. True to her style, the piano soon joins the the cello and the drums. Together, they set the track on fire, preparing it for its chorus. At last, the listener is blessed with the raging anger that can be sensed in her towering vocals as she sings, “We could’ve had all, rolling in the deep”, the instrumentation now at its crescendo.
Adele opens the song, and her album, with a powerful break-up anthem. The song is about an incident wherein her ex-boyfriend insinuates about the sorrow and lonliness Adele will suffer through following their break up. In her own, eloquent way, she said the she,
“wrote that as a sort of “f**k you””
The song was incredible, to say the least.
At a time when sex, superficial love and autotune were the dominant players on the charts, Adele’s soulful, unadulterated, and raw anthem broke through. Accalaimed by fans and critics alike for its simple, stripped production and fierce vocals, the song was an instant success, topping various charts across the globe including the Billboard Hot 100, where it reigned for seven weeks straight.
The song, lyrically, is a kiss-off anthem to her unfortunate ex who is said to have ditched Adele for a Burberry Model. The song reflects on the mistakes made by her ex and its consequences. From Adele’s unstoppable anger, as personified by the production, to the long-term happiness of a family that this man abandoned in favor of more materialistic pleasures, no-one would want to be in this man’s place right now.
The background vocals echo with the ever so shady, “You’re gonna wish you never had met me” as Adele roars, “We could’ve had it all”. However, as will be noted later on in the album, the initial hate and despise that often presides in the immedeate aftermath of an ugly split is soon substitued for self-reflection and finally, acceptance. The perfect way to begin one of the most iconic break up albums.
Now, don’t worry. I’m not one of those reviewers whose only gonna focus on the singles while ignoring the rest of the album.
Over the weeked, I had the joy of combing through the album.
Unlike the singles, which insuated a power-ballad based album, the 11 song collection is actually peppered with a few cleverly produced dance numbers and beats, some of which I couldn’t believe were actually Adele songs.
Following the firey opening with Rolling, the torch is taken over by Rumour Has It. The song’s a cheeky tune where Adele toys about with the various gossip and rumours spreading about her ex’s new relationship and how she seems to be more involved in the relationship.
This cheekiness, however, soon replaced with the sombre note on Turning Tables. Built over a melancholic piano backing, the song documents the rupture of the relationship and how Adele will no longer tolerate her ex’s mood swings, using the metaphor of ‘turning tables’ to symbolize this lack of decisivness on the part of her ex. This song documents the last straw in the already fractured relationship that finally made her quit for good.
The album, however, then progresses to Don’t You Remember, where Adele’s shifts the focus from the vices of her ex to those within her. She takes a moment, along the soothing strum of a folk guitar, to reflect on how she could’ve contributed to the downfall of her relationship, while also pleading her ex to reflect on how the relationship began in hopes of reconcilling and reigniting the relationship. This is quite similar to Lorde’s Supercut, where she reflects on the bright points of the relationship, and Liability, where Lorde takes the time to reflect on her own shortcomings in the relationship.
Set Fire To The Rain, similar to Turning Tables, is Adele describing the regret she feels having dived into a relationship that was doomed to fail. However, unlike the former, the production chooses to emphasize on the anger and disgust rather than sorrow and recollects a part of the rage that was present in Rolling. The song goes on to document the coniving nature of her partner and how there was a side to him she never knew of. A darker side. A side that was the cause of the collapse of the relationship. A side that made her partner cheat on, lie to, and misguide Adele. The emotions are supported by a powerful and memorable piano hook complimeted by a set of drums and high pitched strings that fuel the crescendo.
On He Won’t Go, Adele takes a detour from crooning about the miseries of her relationship to sharing an anecdote.
According to Adele,
The first verse was about me and my ex but then became about two of my close friends who are a couple that became my lifeline when I came off tour. Two months after I met them, the boyfriend went into rehab for heroin addiction. I had no idea about his problem.
While deep in the grief on the failure of her relationship, Adele is always willing to be a supportive companion and a sportsman when it comes to celebrating the success of the relationships of her friends. This displays a much more mature side to Adele, showing that she isn’t someone who spreads her grief to those around her. This is also complimented by the instrumentation, where the gloomy and rage-fuelled atmosphere of the first half of the album is substitued for the casualness of the drums and piano, making it a chilled out break from the intense monotony of the former tracks.
I’ll Be Waiting, which happens to be the most upbeat track on the album, see’s Adele chaneling her inner Amy Winehouse while she plays with the more traditional concept of not getting over a break up. While the lyrical content isn’t very unique compared to the rest of the album, the production is far more pop compared to the ballads on the rest of the album. This makes the song quite the dance number and can easily mislead many to believing the song to be that of a pop veteran rather than from a young Brit on her second album ever.
The song is followed by another relatively positive track, One And Only, which sees her embracing her youth and gushing about a crush. This is in stark contrast to her brand and vocals, which might instead be perceived to be that of an old, celebrated veteran from yester years.
The standard version of the album closes with what I believe to be one of the most important songs on the album, Someone Like You. Remember, the album opened with a significant amount of anger and hatred in Rolling, so the overall tone of the album was saturated with anger, sorrow, regret and the occasional daydreaming. Accompanied by nothing more than a set of looping piano chords, Someone Like You tackles break ups in a way that most in mainstream fail to do so. Rather than reciprocating the anger of the opening, Adele instead chooses to tread along aspects like nostalgia and acceptance, singing, “I wish nothing but the best for you, too”. She seems to have forgiven the mistakes of her ex, instead requesting him not to forget the good times they had in the relationship.
She wishes, both for herself and her ex, to take away the mistakes of their relationship as lessons and treating the joyous moments in the relationship as fond memories of time long gone. Adele had finally gotten closure from this relationship, or is atleast on the path to closure.
This is how Adele concludes one of the best selling albums of the 21st century.
With anger she opened, with peace she departed.
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead
