4 Must-Hear Songs from Adele’s Album ‘25’

Adele’s third album, 25, sounds like an artist making up for lost time.

It’s impossible to think about 25 without the massive shadow of Adele’s groundbreaking second album 21. Not only because 21 sold a staggering 31 million copies, but also because of the bitter breakup the singer painstakingly documented on hits like “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You.”

The third album reflects Adele’s life at 25. On it, she’s consumed with the passage of time. Though age 25 is objectively young, anyone who’s wasted time on a failed relationship might dream of clawing back the lost years.

Still, Adele does business in the trade of heartbreak—the unpredictable changing forms of love: from tender and doting to beastly, ugly betrayal. The songs on 25 are nostalgic, and even the happy ones have an underlying melancholy.

If you are new to this album or need a refresher because it’s been a while, the songs below are good jumping-off points.

“Love in the Dark”

Adele called 21 the breakup album. And 25—no less troubled sounding—the make-up album. But “Love in the Dark” smarts like the busted romance on 21. It also has the cinematic quality of her Bond theme “Skyfall.” However, in “Skyfall” there’s rebirth after death. Yet, with “Love in the Dark,” Adele gives up the ghost of survival. It’s over. You can’t write the make-up album unless you break up first.

“Send My Love (To Your New Lover)”

Though “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” sounds like a departure from her usual sound, Adele wrote the guitar riff as a teen. She wanted to collaborate with Max Martin and Shellback after hearing their production work on Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble.” The sardonic wit here is Swiftian. It’s proof that Swift wasn’t the only one working in the Tortured Poets Department.

“When We Were Young”

“When We Were Young” is a different kind of Adele piano ballad. She’s desperate to capture the moment, a time stamp, consumed by the rushed anxiety of an emptying hourglass. Ariel Rechtshaid produced the track and he pulled Adele’s old-soul instincts into the now. It’s transferring worn tape to pristine digital—a little clearer, brighter, more air. But the longing for youth only increases under the harsh lights of aging.

“Hello”

How do you follow a blockbuster studio album? How do you follow an album that changed the pop music landscape and almost singlehandedly rescued a lagging music industry? One word: “Hello.” When Adele sings the greeting over Greg Kurstin’s scant piano chords, it’s immediately clear she’s on to something colossal. The hook is everything you want from an Adele song: stunning, gorgeous, heartbreaking, a faultless voice. She’s singing from another dimension of sadness. Maybe she’s singing to a former lover. Or she might be addressing herself. It’s reconciliation, a cleansing, an apology, and the resignation that over time, everyone moves on.

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