To create these sonic platforms to explore and express her innermost thoughts and feelings, Adele enlisted one of the most formidable production teams of the last decade. The love she has for her partner is brought into an intense focus on “I Miss You,” but it’s couched in the vulnerable framework of post-fight insecurity. The joy of motherhood runs through the record, never more so than on touching song “Remedy,” but so does all the fear and hurt that comes along with that heady role. In juxtaposition with her last work, which was created amid the fallout of a terrible personal trauma, the new album is about appreciating those important people and things that make up her world and her refusal to compromise them in any way. And then she went into the recording studio.ĭespite some of the minor-key tones that permeate through many of the songs on this album, 25 travels far away from feeling like a collectively melancholic experience. She collected a whole new set of experiences and gained a number of different outlooks and insights that only come with the passage of time. She met someone new she had a baby she lived her life. To attempt to retread that material or revisit a similar set of themes could have been a major career misstep-too much, too soon-so she waited. It also took hold of the zeitgeist to a nearly Thriller or Nevermind-level degree. It was the beautifully orchestrated representation of her actual real-world pain at the moment she wrote and recorded it. 21 was one of the most overt and unapologetic break-up records ever produced. How in the world was Adele ever supposed to follow up a record like 21? The short answer is that she couldn’t.

Adele 25 target deluxe edition