Adele’s ’25’ Album: Review Revue
We’ve patiently (for some, it was more restless) waited four years for the return of Adele after the release of her critically acclaimed 21. But today (November 20), the wait is finally over and the music industry is at a standstill as the UK chanteuse has now unveiled her latest album — 25.
In our review, we gave it a 4.5 out of 5: “25 doesn’t have the rush of palpably unfiltered emotions that graced 21 from start to finish, which both gave the album its power and focus but also limited its scope. 25 is about your next life rushing in to fill the void of your damaged past life, and how that’s thrilling, comforting and terrifying in equal measure.”
So how do other music industry critics feel about Adele’s latest musical effort? Read what they had to say down below!
— Adele (@Adele) November 20, 2015
:: The Atlantic pointed out the self-loathing: “On her new album 25, she sounds great—her voice is somehow more powerful than ever—but she almost never sounds like she thinks she’s great. In fact, she thinks that she’s terrible, worthless, unlovable. Which is striking, given that her last album sold a lot more than anyone else’s did this decade. 25 won’t repeat that achievement after the pre-release hype dies down: It’s too unsure, too slow, too introspective. But it will surely help a lot of people through hard times.”
:: The Guardian gave it three stars: “For the most part, 25 sticks close to the formula of the best-known tracks on its predecessor, 21: big, piano-led ballads, decorated with strings and brass, dealing with heartbreak. In fact, most of them seem to deal with exactly the same heartbreak that fuelled 21: five years on, Adele is still, metaphorically speaking, planted on her ex’s lawn at 3am, tearfully lobbing her shoes at his bedroom window.”
:: While Entertainment Weekly scored it with an A-: “Its lyrics and stylistic flourishes strive much more for simplicity than singularity, so in some ways it can be strange to watch such frenzied energy surround an artist who offers herself so transparently. Adele has always been a little bit of an anomaly, though: She’s an analog girl in a digital world, a pop colossus whose songs don’t conform to anything else on pop radio, an instantly recognizable star who prefers, most of the time, not to be seen.”
:: The A.V. Club also had the same score: “Despite 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. 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.”
:: Billboard gave it four stars: “History teaches us that the power to blow back ears is the power to jerk tears — and that the pop audience craves catharsis even more than it does a hot dance beat. That’s not about to change: there’s every reason to believe it will be true when Adele actually is long in the tooth, and the title of her new album is 78.”
:: The New York Times shared their opinion: “On 25, she remains a plainly declarative singer (and songwriter — she has a writing credit on every song on this album). She’s emphatically firstperson and doesn’t get belabored or obstructed by metaphor or concept. She also offers little in the way of emotional surprise: For Adele, distress is restorative.”
:: US Weekly gave the album a perfect score: “This is not another big sob story though. The 27-year-old has evolved beyond the victimized young lass, wallowing in the anguish of crippled love, whom we first fell for. The earth-shaking ‘Hello’ is one of many songs spun from the maturing view of a woman processing what might have been from a comfortable distance while trying to come to grips with how quickly time flies by.”
:: SPIN shared some impulsive reviews: “By no means is 25 a perfect album, nor is it even particularly great; but its ambition is grand and broader than Adele’s previous two albums. That and that alone is reason enough to justify its inevitable place in history.”
:: Lastly, The Independent gave it three stars: “As ’25’ continues, it’s gradually swamped by the kind of dreary piano ballads that are Adele’s fall-back position, produced by the likes of Ryan Tedder and Bruno Mars’ Smeezingtons operation. It leaves things sounding a little too much like they had been designed by committee – which, on reflection, is probably exactly what those industry types were so eagerly awaiting.”
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