Adele - 25 (2015)

So now I come to the album that got me going on this mini-tangent, the recently released 25. I think for the most part I could have ignored the excitement of Adele's first release in nearly 4 years even though everyone was talking about it if it weren't for one thing... Adele's stupid face.

OK, that's unfair. Adele doesn't have a stupid face. But I hate this album cover so much. For one, using Adele's face on the cover is way past played out at this point, and the way it has played out has gotten progressively worse with each new album. 19 had a wistful and mysterious shot of Adele's left eye and nose. 21 was a more boring but tasteful shot of Adele from the shoulders up. Now 25 LOOK AT MY GIANT FACE!!! It certainly isn't helpful that she's looking right into the camera. I'm unnerved.

The problem with this cover shot becomes more apparent when seen from an oblique angle.

Chin much?

Anyway, Adele's third album. I felt like 19 to 21 was a mostly lateral move, but I'm usually fine with sequels being mostly more of the same. Threequels however had better do something new. Already with the cover art I'm not optimistic.

"Hello" was the first big single from 25 so of course it's hitting leadoff. The first verse is pretty nice with Adele singing in a slightly lower range than I've gotten used to. I like singers who are willing to play with their voices a little. Unfortunately when the song crescendos (assuming that's a verb) it turns into a relatively generic pop song and Adele comes back around to her usual expected voice. It's a decent enough song and a good vocal performance, but not any musically deeper than her previous work. I'm also annoyed that the opening "hello" was said with the same cadence and note progression as Lionel Richie's "Hello".

"Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" is pretty much just a pop song. I don't know why I expect more from Adele. Maybe I just want to like her so much that I don't accept when she writes and sings lame pop music. "I Miss You" has plenty of neat haunted overdubs, and I like how Adele mixes things up with her backing vocal voices. But the song itself has a predictable repeating descending bass pattern that continues even through the chorus. On its own, no big deal, but the same thing happened on "Hello" and I fear it will happen again more than once on this album.

So maybe I'm forcing myself to be too critical and should let Adele sing to me for a bit. Not a hard thing to do as long as she's not singing "Rumor Has It". The approach to recording an Adele song appears to be to just let her voice do all the heavy lifting, and whatever instruments happen to be playing should never overshadow her or even be close to loud enough that you can't understand her. On the one hand, fine, she's a good singer. On the other hand I don't feel like the songs have much balance- great vocals, mediocre instrumentation, and the vocals are always dominant in the mix.

Not that I really care, but Adele's rhyming gets a bit sloppy in "Love In The Dark" and "Million Years Ago". The latter might be my favorite song on the album. Or maybe it's "All I Ask" which features Adele's most powerful performance on 25, and some neat deviations from a standard chord progression. Unlike 19 and 21 I feel 25 has gotten stronger during it's closing tracks. The album starts with pop-leaning tracks, but its "second side" is deeper and more diverse. Another positive development, "Sweetest Devotion" is the closest the album comes to reaching the country-ish tones of 19 and 21, but is thankfully much heavier and uplifting than what Adele has sang before. Solid closer.

So that closes the book on Adele's brief studio career so far. Much like 21 was to 19, I feel 25 is largely more of the same with a few standouts. With the state of popular music today I go back and forth between being surprised Adele is as popular as she is and not being so surprised. It's obvious Adele can sing better than most, so it makes sense she would be popular. But her habit of singing weighty songs with real instruments, and heavily favoring blues and ballads makes her stand out in a crowd of pop princesses, R&B or hip-hop teamups, and whatever the hell Justin Bieber is supposed to be. Maybe it is all just hype, and with the passage of time Adele won't be as crazy popular as she is right now. Or maybe Adele will end up as one of this decade's timeless artists, and I can finally point to a contemporary and say, "This is it. This is the cream of the crop."

Eh, I don't know. From my point of view Adele is fine and should keep making music. In general I sorta like it. 3 stars.