The scorecard
7.2/10 · Good
- Songwriting25%
- 7.0
- Production25%
- 7.5
- Performance15%
- 8.5
- Cohesion15%
- 6.5
- Originality10%
- 6.0
- Replay value10%
- 7.0
Choruses like "Hello" and "When We Were Young" build properly from verse to peak, but half the album leans on repetition over craft, and the acoustic tracks coast on atmosphere rather than earned hooks.
Kurstin, Martin and Danger Mouse bring 1980s R&B synths and drum machines that modernize the sound without erasing the voice, though the ballads still settle into predictable piano-and-strings templates.
The voice remains the asset: controlled power on "Hello," raw vulnerability on "Million Years Ago," and the ability to sell both the wall-of-sound peaks and the stripped-down confessionals.
The album front-loads its best songs, then drifts through five consecutive ballads that blur together, ending with an uplift that feels tacked on rather than earned by the sequence.
The electronic flourishes distinguish it from 21, but the core remains piano balladry that follows rather than leads pop's mid-2010s shift toward rhythm and texture.
"Hello" and "Send My Love" hold up as singles, but the back half sags on repeat listens, with the torch songs offering atmosphere over songs built to last.
Adele 25 — When Motherhood Meets the Ballad Factory
Adele spent three years trying to write an album about being a mother and scrapped it for being too boring. What replaced it is an album about trying to write that album: 25 turns its own creative struggle into its subject, with songs about yearning for the past, regretting the present, and wishing for the clarity that neither provides. The thesis arrives in Adele's open letter accompanying the release, where she calls it a "make-up record" — not with an ex-lover but with herself, an attempt to reconcile who she was with who motherhood and fame have made her. The album delivers on that promise in its first four tracks, then spends the second half circling the same emotional territory without finding new ground.
The stakes were commercial as much as creative. After 21 sold thirty million copies and made Adele the defining voice of early-2010s heartbreak, any follow-up would be judged against an album that had become a cultural fixture. Adele responded by hiring a new stable of producers — Greg Kurstin, Max Martin, Danger Mouse — and incorporating electronic elements, 1980s R&B rhythms, and drum machines that 21 had avoided. The result updates the sound without abandoning the core appeal: a voice capable of selling both arena-sized choruses and quiet devastation, applied to songs about loss, regret, and the disorienting passage of time. When the songwriting supports that voice, as it does on "Hello," "Send My Love," and "When We Were Young," the album justifies the three-year wait. When it doesn't, as it often fails to do across the second half, 25 reveals the limits of trying to make an event album out of material that resists anthems.
The Mechanics of Modernization
The production on 25 succeeds most when it updates Adele's sound without overwhelming it. Kurstin's work on "Hello" layers the vocal over piano, drums, and stacked backing vocals that build to a wall of sound, but the arrangement leaves space for the voice to crack and bend, preserving the raw delivery that made 21 work. The electronic drums and minor-key synth line give the song a contemporary sheen without turning it into a track that could have been sung by anyone else. "Send My Love," produced by Max Martin and Shellback, does the opposite work: it strips the arrangement down to handclaps, a guitar loop, and a rhythmic vocal chop that borrows from Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble," building an uptempo pop song that Adele had never attempted before. The result is the album's most durable hook, a chorus that earns its lift through rhythm and phrasing rather than volume.
The ballads follow a more predictable template. Ariel Rechtshaid's production on "When We Were Young" builds from solo piano to strings and drums in a progression that mirrors "Someone Like You," and while the vocal performance sells the emotion, the song offers no surprises in how it gets there. "Love in the Dark," produced by Samuel Dixon, does the same work with even less variation, settling into a torch-song arrangement that coasts on Adele's ability to sustain a note rather than on any underlying melodic idea. The album's most interesting production choices come from Danger Mouse on "River Lea," where gospel-tinged organ and a murky low-end mix give the song a sense of unease that matches the lyric about polluted water seeping into blood. Paul Epworth's "I Miss You" adds trip-hop drums and a jagged rhythm that make it the album's most overtly seductive track, though the verses meander without a strong enough hook to justify the song's nearly six-minute runtime.
The weaknesses are in the writing. Too many of the ballads lean on repetition rather than development, restating the same emotional territory without adding new information. "All I Ask," co-written with Bruno Mars and produced by The Smeezingtons, builds to a key change and a vocal climax, but the verses offer little in the way of specific detail or imagery, relying on the performance to carry weight that the lyric doesn't earn. "Million Years Ago," accompanied only by acoustic guitar, works better because the specificity is there — the lyric names her mother, her friends, the air she used to breathe — but the song still settles into atmosphere rather than a hook that makes the listener remember the melody after it ends. The album's strongest writing is on "Water Under the Bridge," where the mid-tempo groove and the lyric's push-pull between doubt and devotion give the song a tension that most of the ballads lack.
The Front-Loaded Arc
The album peaks in its first third and never recovers the momentum. The opening thesis arrives as a conversation with the past, an apology for what's been lost, and only one moment on the record moves forward rather than looking back. The first stretch extends this opening statement, but by the time the album reaches its fourth track, the sequencing begins to sag. The middle stretch offers some variation in tempo and tone, but the album then collapses into five consecutive ballads that blur together, each one restating the same sense of longing without finding a new angle on it.
The pacing never recovers. Three competent torch songs arrive back-to-back, draining the album of energy, and the sequencing makes the flaws in each more obvious. The closer attempts to end on an uplift — a tribute to her son that offers resolution and hope — but it arrives too late to redeem the slog that precedes it, and the song itself is too slight to carry the weight of a finale. A tighter tracklist that cut two or three of the weaker ballads and reordered the remainder would have made this a stronger album, but as sequenced, it plays like a collection of singles and album tracks rather than a coherent statement.
The Diminishing Returns of Scale
25 is a more ambitious album than 21 in production and scope, but it is a weaker album in songwriting and focus. Where 21 worked because every song served the breakup narrative, 25 struggles to find a center, cycling through regret, nostalgia, and longing without building to a conclusion. The result is an album that offers four or five excellent songs and six that coast on Adele's voice and the listener's goodwill. It ranks below 21 in the catalog because it lacks the ruthless focus that made that album work, and because the shift toward electronic production and creative rhythmic patterns never fully commits — the album updates the sound just enough to avoid sounding like a retread, but not enough to establish a new identity.
The album is for listeners who want more of what 21 delivered: big choruses, emotional weight, and a voice that can sell both. It is not for listeners who expect the songs to justify their length or the sequencing to earn the album's forty-eight-minute runtime. Start with "Hello," "Send My Love," and "When We Were Young," which contain the album's best writing and most durable hooks. Skip "Love in the Dark" and "All I Ask," which offer the least in return for their runtime. The album has aged as a commercial event rather than as a creative statement, and its legacy is more about what it proved Adele could still sell than what it added to pop balladry. For the next step, try Lorde's Melodrama for a more cohesive take on growing up and looking back, or return to 21 for the tighter, more focused version of what 25 attempts.
Track by track
Track Listing
Hello
StandoutThe album's thesis in five minutes: a conversation with the past, built on a minor-key piano line and a chorus that stacks vocals into a wall of sound. Kurstin's production adds drums and layers without burying the voice, and Adele's delivery — the way the vocal cracks on the word "hello," the control on the sustained notes in the bridge — sells the regret in a lyric that could have been generic. The song works because the arrangement builds properly from verse to chorus, earning the lift instead of forcing it, and because the hook is strong enough to survive the repetition. The drums, which Adele is credited for playing, add a rhythmic pulse that keeps the song from settling into pure balladry. It is the best song on the album and the only one that justifies the three-year wait.
Send My Love (to Your New Lover)
StandoutThe album's only uptempo song, and its most durable hook. Martin and Shellback strip the arrangement down to handclaps, a looped guitar riff, and a rhythmic vocal chop, building a groove that borrows from Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble" but never sounds like imitation. The lyric is direct — a "happy you're gone" song that wishes an ex well without lingering on the loss — and the vocal performance is more playful than anything else on the record, with Adele leaning into the rhythm rather than the power. The song's weakness is its similarity to Swift's work, which makes it feel like Adele chasing a trend rather than setting one, but the hook is strong enough to overcome the derivation. It is the second-best song here and the one that sounds least like what listeners expected from an Adele album.
I Miss You
SolidA nearly six-minute experiment in trip-hop drums and seduction that never finds a hook strong enough to justify the runtime. Epworth's production adds a jagged rhythm and a murky low-end that make the song the album's most overtly sexual, with lyrics about falling into gravity and kissing someone back to life, but the verses meander without a melodic idea to anchor them. The chorus restates the title without developing it, and the song's bridge offers a vocal climax that arrives too late to redeem the slog. It is an interesting detour in sound, but the writing is not there.
When We Were Young
SolidA reflective ballad about treasuring moments before they become memories, built on the same solo-piano-to-strings-and-drums progression that powered "Someone Like You." Rechtshaid's production is competent but predictable, and the song offers no surprises in how it builds from quiet to loud. The vocal performance is controlled and powerful, and the lyric's specificity — naming a night out, a dress, a shared history — gives the song more weight than most of the ballads here. The weakness is in the melody, which restates the same idea without adding variation, and in the arrangement, which follows a template rather than finding a new shape. It is a strong single and a weaker album track.
Remedy
SolidA mid-tempo ballad written about her best friend, her grandparents, her boyfriend, and her son, with a lyric that offers comfort and devotion. Tedder's production is sparse, built on piano and a light drum pattern, and the vocal performance is warm and controlled. The song is one of the album's easier listens, but it lacks a strong enough hook to make it memorable, and the chorus restates the title without developing the idea. It is solid but inessential, the kind of track that serves the album's themes without adding much to the listening experience.
Water Under the Bridge
StandoutThe album's best mid-tempo song, built on an electro-drum beat and a tropical riff that gives the track a rhythmic pulse. The lyric's push-pull between doubt and devotion — asking a lover to either commit or let her down gently — creates a tension that most of the ballads lack, and the chorus earns its lift through the contrast between the verses' uncertainty and the hook's demand for clarity. Kurstin's production is clean and modern, and the song benefits from a structure that builds properly rather than leaning on repetition. It is one of the album's stronger tracks and the one that sounds most like a single that wasn't released as one.
River Lea
SolidA gospel-tinged ballad about growing up in Tottenham and how the polluted river has seeped into her blood, causing relationship failures. Danger Mouse's production adds organ and a murky low-end that gives the song a sense of unease, and the lyric's specificity — naming the river, the geography, the metaphor — makes it one of the album's more interesting narratives. The weakness is in the melody, which settles into atmosphere rather than a hook, and in the song's placement in the sequence, where it arrives just as the album begins to sag. It is a strong piece of writing with production that serves the theme, but it is not strong enough to overcome the pacing issues around it.
Love in the Dark
WeakA torch ballad that coasts on Adele's ability to sustain a note rather than on any underlying melodic idea. Dixon's production follows the predictable piano-to-strings-and-drums template, and the lyric offers little in the way of specific detail, relying on the vocal performance to carry weight that the writing doesn't earn. The song is competent but inessential, and its placement in the sequence — the third consecutive ballad in the album's second half — makes the lack of variation more obvious. It is filler dressed up as a statement.
Million Years Ago
SolidAn acoustic ballad accompanied only by guitar, with Middle Eastern-influenced background hums that suggest Madonna's "Frozen." The lyric is the album's most specific in naming what fame has cost — her mother, her friends, the air she used to breathe — and the vocal performance is raw and vulnerable. The weakness is in the melody, which settles into atmosphere rather than a hook that makes the song memorable after it ends. It is a strong piece of writing with a performance that sells the emotion, but it is not a strong song, and its placement in the sequence drains it of the impact it might have had earlier in the tracklist.
All I Ask
WeakA dramatic ballad co-written with Bruno Mars, built on a key change and a vocal climax that the verses do not earn. The Smeezingtons' production is lush and orchestral, but the lyric offers little in the way of specific detail or imagery, relying on the performance to carry weight that the writing lacks. The chorus restates the title without developing the idea, and the song's bridge offers a vocal peak that arrives too late to redeem the meandering verses. It is the weakest ballad on the album, saved only by Adele's ability to sell a song that does not deserve the effort.
Sweetest Devotion
SolidA tribute to her son, offering resolution and hope after ten songs of regret and longing. Epworth's production adds a rhythmic pulse and a brighter tone, and the lyric's devotion is direct and specific. The song works as a closer in theory, but it arrives too late to redeem the slog that precedes it, and the song itself is too slight to carry the weight of a finale. It is an uplift that feels tacked on rather than earned by the sequence, and while the sentiment is genuine, the execution is not strong enough to make it memorable.
