Adele

• 19 [XL/Columbia, 2008] *
• 21 [XL/Columbia, 2011] **
• 25 [XL/Columbia, 2015] **
• 30 [Columbia, 2021] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

19 [XL/Columbia, 2008]
Still just a teenager, a practical romantic gets by without acting cheeky ("Daydreamer," "Tired"). *

21 [XL/Columbia, 2011]
Part of me likes how many albums this proud white-soul normal has sold, but the part that likes fast ones wins ("Rolling in the Deep," "Rumour Has It") **

25 [XL/Columbia, 2015]
Warm, thoughtful human being bestows a voice capable of enlarging those virtues without melodrama--without boatloads of melodrama, anyway. ("Hello," "Million Years Ago") **

30 [Columbia, 2021]
Curious, I Googled "Adele haters" and was naive enough to be surprised by how many there were--because she's too sad, because she's too proud, because her sincerity isn't clever, because she hondled a weekends-only Vegas deal that let her spend time with her family, because she lost weight. Of course she has haters, her level of celebrity guarantees it, but that's just too bad for them. Album four is a breakthrough I initially put aside on the shotgun assumption that she was merely repeating herself when in fact it explores new vistas of virtuosity, subtly because subtlety is her thing. More than on her 2008, 2011, and 2016 megahits, she's texturing and shading her mezzo on an album a step up variety-wise from its predecessors, conversational here and climactic there but natural or rather "natural" either way and all the stops in between (although note that the twin closers are both almost seven minutes long). Casting about for an all-inclusive adjective I arrived at "trustworthy," which I like because it's not the kind of word you apply to superstars yet serves the purpose of bringing her down to earth, where more than most superstars she belongs. And let the record show that I'm a proud sucker for the snatches of recorded conversation with her young son, who it's hard to believe is now 10 years old. A-