MORE MUSIC THIS WAY >>>

Adele – Rolling in the Deep (Official Music Video)

Rumour Has It

Turning Tables

Don't You Remember

MORE MUSIC THIS WAY >>>

I’ve been looking forward to doing this album blast. 📀
And now that day has arrived.

There are albums you put on for a spin.
Then there are albums you just let ride.

Hours later realize you’ve been listening to the same damn album over and over again. 😂
Adele’s 21 is that album for me.

I liked 19.
Actually, I loved 19.
Chasing Pavements, Hometown Glory caught my attention, and her version of Make You Feel My Love told me this young woman had something special.

Then came 21.
Baby, 21 was different.
19 introduced me to Adele.
21 showed me exactly who she was.

Released in 2011, 21 was Adele sounding young, hungry, wounded, pissed off, vulnerable, hopeful and completely sure of what she wanted to say.
She co wrote every original song on the album, working with people including Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Dan Wilson and Fraser T. Smith, while producers included Rick Rubin, Jim Abbiss and Adele herself.

And that VOICE. 🎙️🔥

She wasn’t singing to fit whatever was popular at the moment.
She wasn’t chasing a genre.
Everybody else’s genres basically had to make room for Adele.

The album moves through soul, blues, pop, rock and singer songwriter territory without ever feeling like it’s trying too hard to be anything.
It’s simply Adele.
That might explain why people with completely different musical tastes all seemed to claim her.

And the songs?
Good Lord.

Rolling in the Deep kicks the door open.
Rumour Has It struts through it.
Turning Tables breaks your heart.
Set Fire to the Rain lets you get dramatic as hell about it. 😂🔥
Then you still have Take It All, I’ll Be Waiting, One and Only and Someone Like You.

The official album has eleven tracks, and there really isn’t a place where I feel the need to reach for the skip button.

What makes 21 especially personal for me is that I can hear pieces of my entire life in it.
Not one relationship.

Not one place in my life.
But a lot of my life.

I’ve had my Turning Tables moment.
I’ve damn sure had my Set Fire to the Rain moment. 🌧️🔥
I’ve known good love, bad love, heartbreak, disappointment, wanting somebody, losing somebody, surviving somebody and finally realizing I deserved better.

Somehow this young woman in her early twenties took emotions I’d experienced across decades of living and put them into one album.
That’s powerful.

Then there’s Lovesong. ❤️
Being an old head, I already knew The Cure’s original from 1989.
I remember that song from my college years.

Adele and Rick Rubin slowed the whole thing down, and suddenly I was hearing a song I already knew in a completely different way.
Rubin actually suggested the reinterpretation to Adele.
So glad he did.😆

That’s one of my favorite things about a great cover.
Don’t just sing somebody else’s song.
Make me understand why you needed to sing it.

Adele did that.

21 sometimes gives me that Sade feeling.
Not because Adele sounds like Sade, because she doesn’t.
They’re both timelessness.
Neither artist needs to chase whatever everybody else is doing.
Put the voice, the song and the emotion in the room and let them work. 🎶

NOW we have to talk about what 21 actually DID.

It spent an incredible 24 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
24!
21 produced three Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 singles in the U.S….
Rolling in the Deep , No. 1 for 7 weeks
Someone Like You, No. 1 for 5 weeks
Set Fire to the Rain, No. 1 for 2 weeks
So Adele pulled three No. 1 singles from the same album, and they spent a combined 14 weeks at No. 1. 🔥

Here’s a quick fact:
Set Fire to the Rain reached No. 1, without an official music video, which was pretty unusual for a monster single in that era.

Then there’s the 2012 Grammys!

Adele walked in and basically said, “Yeah… I’ll take all six.” 😂🏆
She won all six Grammys she was nominated for, Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Short Form Music Video, Best Pop Solo Performance.

THAT is a breakthrough.

Adele named these early albums after ages in her life.
19 lets us hear one Adele.
By 21, you can already hear the growth, experience and emotional maturity coming into focus.

And maybe that’s another reason this album connects with me and so many, so deeply.
We’re all different people at different ages and stages in our lives.

The love changes.
The heartbreak changes.
We change.

But every once in a while, somebody makes an album that somehow finds several versions of you at once.
21 does that for me. 💿❤️

I’d comfortably put it among my Top 20 albums of all time.
And depending on what day you catch me…
It often sits in my Top 10! 😏🎧

DJZ7

#TheSoundtrackOfWhoIBecame, #Adele, #Adele21, #21Album, #RollingInTheDeep, #SomeoneLikeYou, #SetFireToTheRain, #TurningTables, #Lovesong, #AlbumBlast, #MusicMemories, #ClassicAlbums