{"id":45728,"date":"2021-11-25T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=45728"},"modified":"2021-12-22T19:13:51","modified_gmt":"2021-12-23T00:13:51","slug":"only-noise-adele-25-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/only-noise-adele-25-30\/","title":{"rendered":"ONLY NOISE: Adele Threads Together Regret and Growing Older from 25 to 30"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we\u2019re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. In this installment,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JasontheScott\">Jason Scott<\/a>\u00a0soothes their growing pains with the balm of everyone&#8217;s favorite siren singer, who released her fourth studio album last week.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/adele30-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-45766\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I can\u2019t listen to Adele\u2019s <em>25<\/em> without crying. When her third studio record first arrived in the world, I was withering away in a grimy, cockroach-infested apartment in Washington Heights. I braved the sweaty A train downtown two or three days a week for a fruitless, unfulfilling internship. I ate ramen for dinner, meandered through garbage-laden streets to whittle away the evening hours, and didn\u2019t own a mattress. From the prickly kiss-off \u201cSend My Love (To Your New Lover)\u201d to the serene, riverside haunting of \u201cRiver Lea,\u201d the 11-track torch collection nurtured me through one of the most transitional periods in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Loneliness and sorrow pooled around my body, and <em>25<\/em> reflected, in moon-shaped puddles, a numbness back into my eyes. Mistakes and regrets rattled their chains, as I fell deeper into slumber \u4e00 I\u2019m speaking quite literally and metaphorically here. Around me, the world quivered with life and purpose, yet I felt nothing. Nothing. Nothing tears you apart more savagely than everything. Adele\u2019s balladeering seared through skin and directly into my veins, becoming, in essence, a striking potion of what it means to feel lost and sad. I\u2019d often put on <em>25<\/em>, slip my earbuds in, and tumble like Alice fell into the rabbit hole, the hardwood doing a real number on my back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/3AvPX1B1HiFROvYjLb5Qwi?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some albums have a way of worming into your soul so deeply that when you revisit them a million years later, you\u2019re yanked through a wrinkle in time. Adele\u2019s gaping and agile vocal tricks, from the devastating dexterity in which she combs such lyrics as \u201cIt feels like we&#8217;re oceans apart\u201d in \u201cLove in the Dark\u201d and the simple, yet potently precise, refrain of \u201cI Miss You\u201d over bone-breaking drums, tear down your walls as a wrecking ball crushing a dilapidated building\u2019s skeletal remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Her voice slides as a pelican dipping its webbed feet into shallow water, a cascading of ripples sent outward and vibrating into your cells. <em>25<\/em> affected me then, as it does now, on a molecular level. On November 24, 2015, I <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/-fF72OkR5w\/\" target=\"_blank\">upheld my civic duty<\/a> and headed to Target to grab a physical copy, listening to the record on Spotify all the way there and back, naturally. The way the Manhattan streets looked and felt, the wind tenderly caressing through the sparse, cadaverous trees sunken into cracked concrete and dirt, is indelibly on my mind. \u201cWhen We Were Young\u201d electrified me most, with Adele turning the emotional screws tighter and tighter until they popped. \u201cLet me photograph you in this light in case it is the last time\/That we might be exactly like we were before we realized\/We were scared of getting old,\u201d she flits through the air with swift, exact acrobatic swirls. \u201cIt made us restless\/It was just like a movie\/It was just like a song.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those truths speak even more profoundly now. When you get older, and more people fade out of your life \u4e00 whether through severed relationships and friendships or the cold blade of death, you begin to feel that your youth was, in fact, a movie. It\u2019s something intangible, like glittering images from some 1940s talkies like <em>The Jazz Singer<\/em> or <em>Steamboat Willie<\/em>, shadows galivanting across a silver screen. It doesn\u2019t become real any longer. To speak honestly, it\u2019s no longer yours. It belongs to the past, and those people, places, and things which once defined your life are nothing more than ghosts. \u201cEverything just takes me back,\u201d she later laments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jbiol.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/jbiol82\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Emotion in musical memory<\/a> is a peculiar creature. Almost everyone is unwittingly branded with a song, or an album, or a pleasing melody in such a way that it evokes the brightest emotions. It\u2019s mostly positive ones, wistful and brilliant, but on the rare occasion, it\u2019s much harsher, unearthing anger from scorned love. As Adele unfurls with \u201cWhen We Were Young,\u201d she\u2019s \u201cso mad I&#8217;m getting old&#8221; and taps into the dreadful existential march to old age and eventually death. It does feel like a lifetime ago, but as I work through my 30s these days, the anxiety seems pressurized in a way I couldn\u2019t have predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>25<\/em> oscillates between the reverberating \u201cHello,\u201d a mourning, graceful greeting, and the love-affirming \u201cRemedy\u201d before arriving upon \u201cMillion Years Ago,\u201d a cruelly-devastating performance. \u201cI know I&#8217;m not the only one\/Who regrets the things they&#8217;ve done,\u201d she tosses the chorus like a sacrificial lamb to slaughter. The regret and the shame tangles with a cutting vocal, leaving her to simply witness her life vanishing (like clockwork, perhaps) before her eyes. And there\u2019s nothing she can do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s that word again. Nothing. \u201cI feel like my life is flashing by\/And all I can do is watch and cry,\u201d she blubbers, mourning lost life even in her youth. 25 isn\u2019t old by any stretch, but the pummeling of these emotions is valid just the same. And she\u2019s not the only one who has or will ever feel that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>25<\/em> broke my heart into pieces, I realize. It\u2019s been six years since the record release, and most of the album\u2019s core themes of growing older and being at peace with reality burn like a hot iron. Looking back, I continued to obsess over the album, including \u201cAll I Ask,\u201d among her most visceral vocals, in the coming months. I moved to yet another sublet that December, this time buried deep in Brooklyn. It was far more polished, a newly-renovated apartment, and my housemates were the creative sort, fluttering from social events to early-morning auditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Winter descended in puffs of snow and a bitter, enduring cold. My life turned around for the better, and I began working as a staff writer for a ticketing company. Adele\u2019s words, especially with this last song, are what I remember most, as I cozied into a nest of fleece blankets atop an air mattress. \u201cIf this is my last night with you\/Hold me like I&#8217;m more than just a friend\/Give me a memory I can use,\u201d swoons Adele. I could do nothing but sob into my pillow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was 29, feeling time hiss its annoying <em>tick, tick, boom!<\/em> into my ear, and Adele\u2019s <em>25<\/em> comforted me through it all. I couldn\u2019t fathom how things may have turned out without it, and as hyperbolic as that sounds, it\u2019s true. Albums are life preservers, cast into raging waters right when you need it most. \u201cIt ain&#8217;t no life to live like you&#8217;re on the run,\u201d advises Adele with \u201cWater Under the Bridge,\u201d moments before shooting like a torpedo into the skyline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t feel much like I\u2019m on the run these days. Sure, I still have no clue what I\u2019m doing, but does anyone? I play pretend and pay my bills and snuggle my cats on the darkest days. I\u2019m here and alive \u4e00 and that\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s where <em>30<\/em> comes sliding into the frame. Adele endured a painful public divorce and found herself treading water as she dealt with her son\u2019s many inquiries and her own oppressive loneliness. \u201cI&#8217;ll be taking flowers to the cemetery of my heart,\u201d she sings with delicacy in the opening lines of \u201cStrangers by Nature,\u201d greatly inspired by the work of Judy Garland. A patchwork of stars glistens around her, with strings ebbing and flowing in colorful patterns, and Adele gives you a peek into the musicality and emotional voyage on which you\u2019re about to embark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>30<\/em> bottles up Adele\u2019s very personal experiences with divorce, but it also singularly captures the beautiful tragedy of growing into your 30s. It\u2019s brutal out here. And there\u2019s no escaping it. \u201cI had no time to choose what I chose to do, so go easy on me,\u201d she impresses with lead single \u201cEasy on Me.\u201d It\u2019s an admission that sometimes, many times, life happens to you, and you go along for the ride whether you\u2019re prepared for it or not. It\u2019s a march, and we\u2019re all beating our own drums, hoping to keep up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy Little Love\u201d then cools the temperature with an exposing moment, in which she invites her son into the story via recorded audio. It\u2019s uncomfortable, yet necessary. Divorce can damage a kid (I should know; my parents\u2019 split hit me\u2026 <em>hard<\/em>), so to witness Adele guiding her son through unknown territory is refreshing. Later, she stitches in <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bustle.com\/entertainment\/adele-divorce-anxiety-panic-attack\" target=\"_blank\">a voicemail she left for a friend<\/a> to reveal her mental state, mid-panic attack. \u201cI&#8217;m having a bad day. I&#8217;m having a very anxious day. I feel very paranoid. I feel very stressed,\u201d she says in the audio track. \u201cI feel like today is the first day since I left him that I feel lonely. And I never feel lonely. I love being on my own. I always preferred being on my own than being with people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such vulnerability marks <em>30<\/em> as her best record to-date. \u201cCry Your Heart Out\u201d masks honest lyrics (\u201cI&#8217;ve never been more scared,\u201d she admits) behind a Motown slink, jaunting over beats as a distraction to the vital catharsis occurring in private. Then, \u201cOh My God\u201d finds Adele course-correcting, emotionally, and reclaiming her psychological condition. \u201cOh, my god, I can&#8217;t believe it\/Out of all the people in the world\/What is the likelihood of jumping\/Out of my life and into your arms?,\u201d she exhales, permitting herself to have fun again, even if it\u2019s terribly fleeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/21jF5jlMtzo94wbxmJ18aa?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCan I Get It\u201d is a flirtatious cry for a real relationship (finding the L.A. dating scene mediocre, at best), whereas \u201cI Drink Wine\u201d re-centers the record\u2019s focus on probing what it means to heal, be a whole person, and unconcerned with \u201cseekin&#8217; approval from people I don&#8217;t even know,\u201d she sings over Elton John-influenced melody and production. \u201cI hope I learn to get over myself\/Stop tryin&#8217; to be somebody else,\u201d she continues. \u201cOh, I just want to love you, love you for free\/Everybody wants somethin&#8217; from me, you just want me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you get older, there\u2019s a crossroads where you have to decide to show up for yourself and not for others. The things you fussed over don\u2019t seem as fussy, and the things you took for granted become important again. Relationships are more precious, and you even reconsider what it means to be alive. \u201cSometimes, the road less traveled is a road best left behind,\u201d she counsels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adele\u2019s most astute and passionate moment arrives with \u201cTo Be Loved,\u201d a six-minute epic about how she \u201cbuilt a house for a love to grow.\u201d The sterling piano ballad roots itself in heartache, but its emotional appeal ventures into greater territory \u4e00 like death and losing loved ones. My mother died two months ago, so forgive me if this song has completely shattered every part of me. \u201cTo be loved and love at the highest count\/Means to lose all the things I can&#8217;t live without,\u201d she spills out her heart and soul onto the piano. \u201cLet it be known that I will choose to lose\/It&#8217;s a sacrifice, but I can&#8217;t live a lie\/Let it be known, let it be known that I tried.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cLet it be known that I tried.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let it be known that I tried with my mother. I too \u201ctook some bad turns that I am owning,\u201d as Adele confides. Let it be known that I cared and sacrificed and loved to the best of my ability, losing myself in the process. But that doesn\u2019t make the sting of vanishing any less severe. It\u2019s like your house being ripped apart in a hurricane and only walking away with a broken leg. It could have been worse, but it sure as hell could have been better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Death surrounds you as you grow older, another terrible side-effect of aging. It never gets any easier. It gets <em>harder<\/em>, actually. \u201cLet it be known that I cried for you, even started lying to you. What a thing to do,\u201d Adele leaves you questioning existence, as framed within the universal experience of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What a thing to do: to love and be loved. What a thing it is to live and fail so many times. But we\u2019re here and we have albums like <em>30<\/em> that are far more than a divorce album. It\u2019s about life and death, passing into and out of love, forgetting to live and then remembering, and crashing recklessly through your experiences. And it\u2019s joyous and fulfilling and wonderful and messy and devastating and sad all at the same time. And sometimes you may want to stay in bed. But at least you\u2019re here. That is what matters most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least you tried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we\u2019re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. In this installment,\u00a0Jason Scott\u00a0soothes their growing pains with the balm of everyone&#8217;s favorite siren singer, who released her fourth studio album last week. I can\u2019t listen to Adele\u2019s 25 without crying. When her third studio record [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":45766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6732,4416],"tags":[4192],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/adele30-1-e1638039262669.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45728"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46075,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45728\/revisions\/46075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}