Advertisement

Adele releases 30: Reviews, reactions and revelations from the singer’s new album

Roisin O'Connor
·11 min read

Adele has released her longawaited, eagerly anticipated album 30.

Fans all around the world are reacting to the British artist’s fourth record, which includes her hit single “Easy on Me”.

Reviews for the album went live earlier this week, with critics praising the “immediacy” to her lyrics, along with her vocal prowess.

“Earlier songs spoke in platitudes and broad strokes,” The Independent’s Annabel Nugent observed.

“They projected human emotions onto the natural world – a shallow valley, a shelter in the rain, the river running nearby where she grew up. But the singer of 30 is more literal. Adele unmediated. Adele unfiltered. Adele opening her Notes app at 3am mid-anxiety attack and jotting down whatever comes to mind.”

In a recent interview, Adele responded to fans who said the new music was “too similar” to her previous work, questioning: “Why would I shake up my sound?”

Read more:

The liveblog is now closed

Key Points

  • Adele releases new album 30, fans go wild

  • The Independent’s review of Adele’s new album, 30

  • Adele reveals voicenotes to son in song ‘My Little Love'

  • What the critics are saying about Adele’s new album, 30

13:29 , Roisin O'Connor

I’m going to wrap up the blog now and spend the rest of the day enjoying the album, as hopefully many of Adele’s fans will be to! Thanks for following.

12:48 , Roisin O'Connor

To anyone questioning whether Adele just does ‘the same thing over and over’, this fan has something to say:

12:36 , Roisin O'Connor

Already!

12:18 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele has finally released her new album 30 , and fans are celebrating with a bottle of wine and a good cry.

The album comes six years after the 33-year-old singer’s last album 25. Critics are calling the record a “gripping act of big budget vulnerability.”

Following the release of 30, fans are calling it Adele’s “best yet” and fiercely debating the ranking of their favourite songs on it.

However, one user tweeted, simply: “Adele has hacked this music thing.”

Another user confessed: “I gotta admit, I thought it was gonna be more of the same Adele, but it really does feel soo fresh and evolved and powerful.”

“Adele never misses,” one announced triumphantly.

Several users confirmed that their weekend plans now involved listening to 30 on repeat, while drinking copious amounts of wine and crying through a box of Kleenex.

How fans are reacting to Adele’s new album, 30

11:58 , Roisin O'Connor

In case you missed it, here’s The Independent’s review of 30.

Adele, our patron saint of heartbreak, licks her wounds on divorce album 30 – review

11:38 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele doesn’t like to be rushed. She’s been sharp in response to fans nagging her about when she was returning with new music. “Of course not,” she said to one such fan last year. “Corona ain’t over. I’m quarantining. Wear a mask and be patient.”

But patience is not a virtue most contemporary music fans are familiar with. Thanks to social media, we live in a state of perpetual “content”, one in which the traditional “album” format has lost much of its relevance. Even Taylor Swift, an artist formerly renowned for her complex and drawn-out campaigns, dropped three records in less than a year with relatively little warning. There was Folklore, a finely woven collection of piano-based songs composed with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner. Then came the autumn-themed Evermore, and, in April this year, a re-recorded version of her country pop album, Fearless. In doing so, she seemed to rebel against the prevalence of the artistic “era” – the way a new music project must be accompanied with a new look, a new sound, the prerequisite to catching the attention of an increasingly distracted audience.

Read my piece on why Adele will always be unique here.

10:47 , Roisin O'Connor

Reviewers across the media have shared their verdicts for 30, the latest album by Adele – and it’s good news for the “Hello” singer-songwriter.

The album, which is Adele’s first in six years, has been heralded as the singer’s best work by several outlets, with many praising the songwriting craft and musicianship.

In a four-star review from The Independent, Annabel Nugent wrote: “Lyrically, 30 is candid. Adele has always been forthright – every bad feeling you’ve felt, she has confessed to feeling too – but there is a new immediacy here.

“Earlier songs spoke in platitudes and broad strokes. They projected human emotions onto the natural world – a shallow valley, a shelter in the rain, the river running nearby where she grew up. But the singer of 30 is more literal. Adele unmediated. Adele unfiltered. Adele opening her Notes app at 3am mid-anxiety attack and jotting down whatever comes to mind.”

Read more reviews here.

What the critics are saying about Adele’s new album

10:38 , Roisin O'Connor

10:24 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele shared a particularly candid moment of vulnerability in a track on her new album, 30.

The British artist released her first record in six years today (19 November), and is currently receiving praise from fans and critics around the world.

One of the songs is attracting attention because it shares a deeply personal insight into the aftermath of Adele’s divorce from her husband, Simon Konecki.

“My Little Love” intersperses voicenotes – recorded at the suggestion of her therapist – where Adele attempts to explain what’s happening in her life to her son, Angelo.

Towards the end of the track, she is heard crying as she admits she’s struggling with loneliness. It appears this was recorded either when Adele was alone or during a session with her therapist.

Full story here.

10:04 , Roisin O'Connor

Strong praise

09:42 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele’s father heard her music for the first time in years after reconciliation

08:54 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele opened up about her relationship with her father during an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

During the conversation, which aired on Sunday (14 November) on CBS in the US, Adele said her father, Mark Evans, didn’t listen to her music for years.

The only song he had listened to, she said, was her 2007 single “Hometown Glory”.

“He was like, it’s too painful. He would switch it off and he never ever played any of my other music,” Adele told Winfrey.

The situation changed shortly before Evans’s death of bowel cancer in May this year.

In April, Adele and her father were able to have a conversation she says brought her much-needed closure. During the exchange, Adele played him her forthcoming album, 30, on Zoom.

“I felt that huge gaping hole filled,” Adele told Winfrey of the conversation she had with her father. “We forgave each other. ... We found our peace together, and then I played the album to him on Zoom.”

Adele told Rolling Stone in an interview published on 11 November that her father was the first person to hear her new songs.

Adele voicenotes reveal emotional discussions of divorce with her son, Angelo

08:41 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele has released her new album, 30, and fans are already unpacking the lyrics and meanings behind each track.

The British artist, 33, has previously explained that the record was written as an attempt to explain her divorce to her nine-year-old son, Angelo.

Following her separation from ex-husband Simon Konecki, Angelo’s father, Adele began recording conversations with Angelo at the suggestion of her therapist.

“Mummy’s been having a lot of big feelings recently,” she tells Angelo, on “My Little Love”. “And I feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

Read the full story here.

08:17 , Roisin O'Connor

“For a singer who has built a career from the ashes of emotional bedlam, the opening of 30 is surprising. A twinkly orchestra invites the listener into some misty, enchanted glade. It’s muffled but unmistakable, like hearing the opening credits of an old-timey Disney movie playing in the next room.

“The song – a composition inspired by Judy Garland – follows suit. Next, though, is “Easy On Me” and any notion that 30 will be a happy jaunt down a yellow brick road is quickly dispelled. A tornado of self-revelation instead awaits.”

Read Annabel Nugent’s full review of 30 by Adele here.

08:04 , Roisin O'Connor

How many of you are planning on tuning into ‘An Audience With Adele’ this weekend?

07:52 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele has finally explained the story behind a picture of her speaking angrily on the phone that went viral in February last year.

The singer, who has just released her new album 30, was seen having what looked like an intense conversation on the phone, stepping out of a car at Heathrow Airport in London.

She was dressed all in black – a Nike hoodie, trackies, trainers and Moncler puffer jacket – and had perfectly manicured fingernails. Pictures of the moment went viral, with many on social media speculating over what she was so upset about.

Now, in a new interview with The Face, Adele has explained what was happening.

“I was f***ing livid when I got off that plane, f***ing hell!,” she said. “[The phone call] was with one of my friends. I wasn’t actually shouting at someone, I was telling the story of something that had happened to my best friend, Laura.”

Read the full story here.

Billboard ranks every song on 30 by Adele

07:31 , Roisin O'Connor

Billboard has already released its ranking of the songs on Adele’s new album – what do you think?

#1 To Be Loved #2 Can I Get It #3 I Drink Wine #4 Love Is A Game #5 Oh My God #6 Easy On Me #7 Cry Your Heart Out #8 All Night Parking #9 Hold On #10 Woman Like Me #11 My Little Love #12 Strangers By Nature

Fans pick their favourite songs on Adele’s new album 30

07:17 , Roisin O'Connor

What’s your favourite song on the album so far? I’m leaning towards “Oh My God” and “All Night Parking”.

Adele ‘hurt’ that people felt ‘let down’ by weight loss

07:12 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele has said she is “concerned” by how people reacted to her weight loss.

The British artist’s noticeable change in image since her last major public appearances in 2017 was widely discussed on social media and by the press.

In her interview with Oprah Winfrey, Adele revealed she initially began exercising more because it helped her manage her issues with anxiety, and that she didn’t set out to lose weight.

In a new interview withThe Face, she said it made her “sad” that people “expected that much” from her.

“I’m concerned that so many people were so hurt by it,” she said. “That’s a real thing. But I never gave myself that role or job. It’s not my responsibility. I’ve never set my validations on anyone else, I would never.

Read more below:

Adele ‘hurt’ that people felt ‘let down’ by weight loss

How fans are reacting to Adele’s new album, 30

06:59 , Roisin O'Connor

Adele has finally released her new album 30 , and fans are celebrating with a bottle of wine and a good cry.

The album comes six years after the 33-year-old singer’s last album 25. Critics are calling the record a “gripping act of big budget vulnerability.”

In her four-star review for The Independent , critic Annabel Nugent wrote: “Lyrically, 30 is candid. Adele has always been forthright – every bad feeling you’ve felt, she has confessed to feeling too – but there is a new immediacy here.”

“Earlier songs spoke in platitudes and broad strokes. They projected human emotions onto the natural world – a shallow valley, a shelter in the rain, the river running nearby where she grew up.

“But the singer of 30 is more literal. Adele unmediated. Adele unfiltered. Adele opening her Notes app at 3am mid-anxiety attack and jotting down whatever comes to mind.”

Following the release of 30, fans are calling it Adele’s “best yet” and fiercely debating the ranking of their favourite songs on it.

However, one user tweeted, simply: “Adele has hacked this music thing.”

See more fan reactions here.

Adele review, 30: The world’s finest chronicler of heartbreak

06:50 , Roisin O'Connor

My wonderful colleague Annabel Nugent went to hear the album last week and wrote a fantastic review, which you can read below:

With ‘Easy On Me’, Adele has returned with exposed wounds – review