Adele's 30 hit #1

30 Adele

Released: November 19, 2021 Peak: 16 US, 15 UK, 16 CN, 17 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.26 UK, 5.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: blue-eyed soul

Tracks: Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. Strangers by Nature [3:02] (12/4/21, 41 US) Easy on Me [3:44] (10/15/21, 110 BB, 121 AC, 110 A40, 2 AA, 32a RB, 18 UK, 18 CN, 14 AU, 12 DF) My Little Love [6:29] (12/4/21, 23 US) Cry Your Heart Out [4:15] (12/4/21, 44 US) Oh My God [3:45] (11/27/21, 5 US, 10 AC, 8 A40, 11 AA, 2 UK, 8 CN, 6 AU) Can I Get It [3:30] (12/4/21, 26 US) I Drink Wine [6:16] (12/2/21, 18 US, 4 UK) All Night Parking (with Erroll Garner) [2:41] (12/4/21, 53 US) Woman Like Me [5:00] (12/4/21, 55 US) Hold On [6:06] (12/4/21, 49 US) To Be Loved [6:43] (12/4/21, 32 US) Love Is a Game [6:43] (12/4/21, 56 US) All songs by Adele with other songwriters. Total Running Time: 58:15

Rating: 4.097 out of 5.00 (average of 33 ratings) Quotable: Her “toughest, most powerful album yet.” – Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Adele’s fourth album deals with her separation from Simon Konecki (who she divorced in January 2021) as well as motherhood and fame. It has been described as “a pop, jazz, and soul album focusing on romantic but melancholic themes of heartache, acceptance, and hope.” WK Rolling Stone’s Rob Sheffield called 30 Adele’s “toughest, most powerful album yet.” WK Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph agreed that it was her strongest record yet. WK Variety said it is “her emotionally rawest, riskiest and best record.” VY The Guardian called it a “self-flagellating powerhouse of an album.” GU “This is a classy album, if not quite a stone-cold classic.” GU Her “emotions are fathoms-deep and mountain high.” GU Adele “ugly-cries, then wipes off her streaked makeup,” GU spilling forth “enough wrenching, life-and-death drama to leave you completely spent by the time the hour is up.” VY Because she was “denied a happily-ever-after nuclear family as a child, she wanted for her son” GU so her failed marriage caused her anxiety and guilt. She said the intent of the album was to explain things to her son, Angelo. GU As usual, Adele’s “vocal reach extends to the bits of stadiums only the pigeons and crane operators know.” GU “What’s new here is the…rawness of her feelings and how plaintive Adele’s pleas become for mitigating factors to be taken into account.” GU “Stymied by the notion that big emotions need inflation, 30 overreaches for the rafters a little too often.” GU This won’t be her biggest-selling album, nor does it have “a string of obvious world-conquering singles…although it has a good enough handful of un-obvious ones. But there’s a bracing maturity in these 12 tracks that’s more emotionally complex and intriguing than the rather more easy-to-follow woe of the preceding three collections.” VY She wrote the songs between 2018 and 2021, working with producers Greg Kurstin, Tobias Jesso Jr., Max Martin, and Shellback. All of them previously worked on her 2015 album 25. New to the fold is Dean Josiah “Inflo” Cover, who has worked with his own group Sault as well as Michael Kiwanuka and Little Simz. GU In February 2020, she announced that it would be out by that September, but the release was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. WK As for the name 30, it refers to Adele’s age when she wrote most of the songs, VY not her age upon the album’s release (33). Charts and Sales The album sold 261,000 copies in its debut week in the UK, making for the biggest first-week sales of 2021. OC It was also the biggest opener for a female solo album since…well, Adele’s 25 album in 2015. OC All four of her studio albums have topped the charts in the UK. In the United States, all 12 songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 in the album’s debut week. While other albums have accomplished this feat, it is the first time for Adele. She laneded the biggest sales week of the year in the United States as well with 692,000. BB “Easy on Me” “The Adele you thought you know comes…sharply…into focus with…Easy on Me, which was picked as the first single for a reason: Musically, at least, it’s the one where she’s most saying ‘Hello,’ again, and it makes a good segue into some of the album’s riskier deviations from form.” VY “Strangers by Nature” On Strangers by Nature, Adele “proves nicely capable of restraining her full-bathos diva-ness in favor of a greater embrace of jazz-style singing.” VY She “establishes a Judy Garland atmosphere…Wrapped in Disney-soundtrack strings and flutes, the song sets up a melancholic, retro LA headspace.” GU “Cry Your Heart Out” and “Oh My God” Cry Your Heart Out “packs a little retro perkiness, echoing Amy Winehouse.” GU It is one of the album’s “most overtly commercial songs.” VY “Oh My God details Adele’s shock at a new relationship, accompanied by more frisky production.” GU “It’s the record’s sexy-AF breakout.” VY “Can I Get It” Can I Get It “represents the record’s most obvious booster-shot-bop. It’s a track made up of so many disparate parts, figuring out whether or not they organically connect isn’t easy even on a third or fourth listen.” VY “Martin and Shellback’s Frankenstein-ian pop confection moves from solo acoustic guitar to brash electronic beat and back again.” VY “I Drink Wine” “I Drink Wine is the track that Adele-oholics have already decided is their favorite; they don’t even need to hear it, with that title. It won’t be a letdown, even though it’s all about letdowns. ‘How come we’ve both become a version of a person we don’t like?’ she sings, over a solo piano bed that isn’t mournful, like the one in ‘Easy on Me,’ but sweet and gospely.” VY “Hold On” “The waterworks go all the way up to 11 on Hold On, whose hymnal qualities telegraph a faith that painful situations get better in time.” GU “Woman Like Me” On Woman Like Me, “there’s a small world of romantic and class power dynamics to unpack” VY as she “spints a scenario where a man, rather than rising to the occasion and embracing her boss-hood, has retreated to hang out with his old circle.” VY “She goes to a pretty dark place, and she’s not leaving us in the dark about it.” VY “To Be Loved” “Just when you think that Adele’s lungs can expand no wider…along comes To Be Loved.” GU This is “seven minutes of nothing but Adele and co-writer-producer Tobias Jesso Jr.’s piano. It’s not just the best singing Adele has ever delivered; you might leave it thinking it’s one of the best vocals anyone has ever recorded.” VY “All Night Parking” That “is the track that defines 30, but arguably the most grown-up tune on this very grown-up album is All Night Parking.” GU She sings “fresh lyrics over a vintage Erroll Garner jazz piano instrumental that’s embellished a bit with newly recorded trumpet and violin.” VY “Love Is a Game” The album “finds its…climax…in a fun cynical romp of a finale, one that takes just a little of the piss out of the sobriety of the last few songs. On Love Is a Game…the strings kick back in and swell to their grandest, and Adele does an almost girl-group call-and-response with herself.” VY Notes: The Target deluxe edition added bonus tracks “Wild Wild West,” “Can’t Be Together,” and a duet of “Easy on Me” with Chris Stapleton.

Resources and Related Links: BB Billboard.com (11/29/2021). “Adele Charts All 12 Tracks from ‘30’ on Billboard Hot 100” by Xander Zellner GU Guardian OC OfficialCharts.com (11/26/2021). “Adele scores Official Charts Double as 30 makes record-breaking Number 1 debut” by George Griffiths VY Variety WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 11/22/2021; last updated 2/17/2023.

Sia hit #1 with “Cheap Thrills”

Cheap Thrills Sia with Sean Paul

Writer(s): Sia Furler, Greg Kurstin, Sean Paul Henriques (see lyrics here) Released: February 11, 2016 First Charted: March 5, 2016 Peak: 14 US, 18 BA, 16 RR, 2 AC, 17 A40, 2 UK, 14 CN, 6 AU, 21 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 8.0 US, 1.76 UK, 11.1 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2032.0 video, 1623.43 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Australian singer Sia had been around as a performer for years and toyed with the idea of switching gears and just being a songwriter. She initially wrote “Cheap Thrills” with Rihanna in mind since the Barbados singer had already found chart-topping success with the Sia-penned “Diamonds.” However, Rihanna’s people wanted something more soulful and turned it down. Sia realized it “sounded a little bit too Brit-pop for her” but thought there was “something really uplifting about it that put me in a good mood.” SF Shen ended up recording it herself for her seventh album, This Is Acting. A remix of the song featuring reggae artist Sean Paul was released as the album’s second single. When Sia approached Paul, he listened to the song and thought, “What a big sound, nice hook and melody she had put down. I’m a huge fan of her voice. She spans generations.” SF The “synthpop and dancehall song” WK went all the way to #1 on the BillboardHot 100. It was her first chart-topper as a performer and Paul’s fourth trip to the pinnacle. “Cheap Thrills” was also a #1 in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Slovenia and a top 10 in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. WK It became the all-time best-selling song in Italy. WK It was the most “Shazamed” of the year, meaning more people used the music identification app Shazam to identify this song in 2016 than any other song. SF The song was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos called the song a “bouncy party anthem” and NME’s Nick Levine said “there’s no denying this is another superior slab of on-trend ear candy from one of pop’s finest songwriters.” WK Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Sia DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Sean Paul SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Last updated 7/24/2023.

Adele’s “Hello” debuted at #1

Hello Adele

Writer(s): Adele Adkins, Greg Kurstin (see lyrics here) Released: October 23, 2015 First Charted: November 7, 2015 Peak: 110 US, 14 RR, 111 BA, 17 DG, 17 ST, 116 AC, 17 A40, 14 AA, 10a RB, 13 UK, 17 CN, 16 AU, 13 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 7.0 US, 1.86 UK, 15.24 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 2910.90 video, 1524.84 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Adele’s second album, 21, made her a superstar – and set the expectations high for her follow-up album, 25. She introduced new material via a commercial in the United Kingdom on The X Factor on October 18, 2015. Vanity Fair’s Josh Duboff said “the internet collectively lost its mind” after the thirty-second broadcast of “Hello.” WK The single was released five days later. It debuted at #1 in 20 countries, including the United States’ Billboard Hot 100 where it stayed for 10 weeks. It was her fourth #1 in the United States and her second in the U.K. It became the first song to sell more than a million digital copies in a week WK and set a record for 7.32 million streams in its first week. WK The video also set a record with more than 27.7 million views in a 24-hour span, beating the previous record of 20.1 million views by Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.” WK It set the Vevo record for the fastest video to reach 100 million views in five days. WK The video also became the quickest to reach one billion views on YouTube – 88 days. WK MTV named it Video of the Year at its 2016 Video Music Awards. WK The song won Grammys for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. 25 won for Album of the Year and Pop Vocal Album, giving Adele five Grammys for the night. She became the first artist in history to win the three general field awards in the same ceremony twice. WK The “piano ballad with soul influences” WK was marked by lyrics focused on “themes of nostalgia and regret and plays out like a conversation.” WK The song took six months to write – her co-writer, Greg Kurstin, said he wondered “if Adele was ever going to come back and finish it.” WK Kurstin ended up playing bass, guitar, drums, piano, and keyboards on the song. WK The result was what The Guardian’s Alex Petridis described as “precisely the kind of lovelorn epic ballad that made Adele one of the biggest stars in the world.” WK Resources: WK Wikipedia Related Links: Last updated 3/31/2024.