Twelve Spiritual Lessons from the Gospel of Adele: A Track-by-Track Reflection on ‘30’
If you see someone in public crying softly in a corner, check to see if they have headphones on: they are probably listening to the new Adele album. That may sound like the kind of thing you’d say about an Adele record— of course it’s going to give you “all the feels” — but seriously, this is no easy joke. Listening to ‘30’ feels like plugging into a power source, currents of insight and sizzles of emotion transmitted from her consciousness to yours with stunning precision.
For a moment, it might have been tempting to brace for yet another pop cultural disappointment. How could anyone’s expectations reasonably be met after a six-year wait? And Adele’s recent televised concert, recorded near the Hollywood hills, was a bit worrisome; so many cutaways to the celebrities in the audience paying homage, few of them now only a musician or an actor but these days a “brand”; they looked like dancing CEOs gathered a bit too on the nose in front of the Hollywood sign. Could Adele still find a pure place to draw from if her peer group is now the glitterati?
With the long-awaited release of ‘30’ now in our hands and headsets, those collective fears can be quelled. There’s much talk about “vulnerability” these days; few people are making real art from it. Adele’s new album ‘30’ is like…
