Adele Adkins doesn’t just write songs; she writes anthems. Over the course of her 15-year career, she’s become the patron saint of heartache in mainstream music, penning tear-jerking songs about the woes of love.
In the six years since her monstrously successful third record, 25, she’s been busy raising a son, as well as marrying—then divorcing—her now ex-husband.
30 opens with the mournful “Strangers By Nature,” a lulling, foreboding song in which views her heart as a cemetery filled with now deceased loves.
Adele refers to herself in the third-person as “mama,” while singing directly to him, and the track includes snippets of conversation between Adele and her son, telling him how she’s “been carrying a lot of emotions lately.” There’s a push and pull in the lyrics—of a mother needing her son for support while feeling guilty about wearing these emotions on her sleeve for him to see.
Singing about feeling devoid of emotion, fragile, and outright scared, she instructs, “All love is devout, no feeling is a waste, but give it to yourself now,” a reminder that in the fallout of a relationship, self-love remains crucial.
The former uses layered vocals to toast the pursuit of love in trying times, while the latter harnesses a sensuality not often heard in Adele’s work, as she moans during the chorus, asking if she can get someone’s love, come hell or high water.
This R&B number lets her get back in touch with her tenderness: Whimsical and dreamy, she sings about an infatuation, confessing to impetuous desire as the late Garner’s piano lines give new life to the music—outstripping the more generic piano melodies found on 25, for example—and reaches for something deeper, rooted in complex desire.
Adele grapples with grief and loneliness many times throughout 30, but anger only arises on “Woman Like Me,” in which she drags a certain man through the filth for not appreciating her and reciprocating her efforts in their relationship.
What starts with just her and the piano opens up to a choir and a full band arrangement: Riding the wave of the moving bridge, strings enter and follow Adele’s lead as she sings of patience and graciousness, preaching the need to just hold on—something her friends tell her time and time again, which may be why the choir is credited as “Adele’s crazy friends” in the liner notes.
With just the backup of a simple, measured piano line, “To Be Loved” is a wrenching confessional that finds the singer at the absolute top of her game.
Evoking classic jazz singers like Billie Holiday or Etta James, Adele pushes the limits of her range as she sings about the pain she’s endured and the “foolish game” of pursuing love in this life.
Although the potency of 30 diminishes with “Oh My God” and “Can I Get It,” the final three songs are so raw, moving, and perfectly executed that the two lesser tracks become mere blips in the grandeur of the rest of the album.