#adele30edit

[adeles]

I had good intentions And the highest hopes But I know right now It probably doesn't even show

ADELE — Easy On Me (2021)

[fuckyeahadele]

HELLO (2015) x EASY ON ME (2021) 

dir. Xavier Dolan

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[adeles]

Adele had already started writing the album everyone was waiting for. She began work on 30 in early 2019 and had it completely written by early 2020, though the pandemic would have something to say about the eventual release date. Sure, it’s an album about “divorce, babe,” as she stated recently in her first-ever Instagram Live. But it’s not the collection of scorched-earth power ballads everyone may have been expecting.

Instead, Adele wrote an open letter to Angelo, in hopes that one day he’ll hear the album and really, truly understand who his mom was and how her life changed during this time. The only song specifically about her marriage is “Easy on Me,” the gorgeous, very typically Adele first single. Across 30, Adele assesses the most important relationship of her life: the one with herself. Saturn returns are periods of major upheaval at the turn of one’s thirties, and Adele just went through hers, coming out on the other side of a turbulent period ready to reckon with who she is and what she wants, even if it meant upending her own life. She got a bit addicted to the gym; it was another place where she didn’t feel anxious. She was learning she was stronger than she thought and healing parts of her body, like the back that had given her trouble for years. She also learned she is surprisingly athletic. “If I can transform my strength and my body like this, surely I can do it to my emotions and to my brain and to my inner well-being,” she surmised. “That was what drove me. It just coincided with all of the emotional work that I was doing with myself as a visual for it, basically.” Adele has started to wonder about society’s expectations for mothers, how they’re always just moms while dads can be many things at once. Much of that is what reinforced her feelings of failing Angelo after leaving Konecki. “I might not have been emotionally there all the time, but I never wasn’t there for him,” she says, defending herself against her own fears. “My Little Love” — and, really, all of 30 — is about showing Angelo who his mother really is: a layered and complicated woman with an identity outside of their relationship, who’s struggled and cried and hurt. “He needs to know everyone goes through it,” she continues. So far, and as heard on the voice memos, he is quite the understanding nine-year-old. “He’s a Libra, so he is, like, ‘Chill. It’s fine, Mama. Just chill out.’ ”

ADELE for Rolling Stone (December 2021) photographed by Theo Wenner

[adeles]

Adele isn’t active online when she’s not promoting an album or tour, but she is a “full-blown millennial.” Meaning she’s an NSA-level online sleuth. “I know how to trace something online, like no one’s business, back to the original source or leak, more than anyone on my team,” she claims. She has a “finsta” — fake Instagram — she uses to check out cat and interior-design content, and a fake Twitter for checking on what’s come out about her. ADELE photographed by Simon Emmett

[adeles]

There ain’t no gold in this river That I’ve been washing my hands in forever I know there is hope in these waters But I can’t bring myself to swim When I am drowning in the silence Baby, let me in

ADELE — Easy On Me (2021)

[adeles]

ADELE

HELLO (2015) | EASY ON ME (2021) dir. Xavier Dolan bonus:

[adeles]

I was certainly nowhere near where I'd hoped to be when I first started it nearly 3 years ago. Quite the opposite actually. I rely on routine and consistency to feel safe, I always have. And yet there I was knowingly - willingly even, throwing myself into a maze of absolute mess and inner turmoil! I've learned a lot of blistering home truths about myself along the way. I've shed many layers but also wrapped myself in new ones. Discovered genuinely useful and wholesome mentalities to lead with, and I feel like I've finally found my feeling again. I'd go so far as to say that I've never felt more peaceful in my life. And so, I'm ready to finally put this album out. It was my ride or die throughout the most turbulent period of my life. When I was writing it, it was my friend who came over with a bottle of wine and a takeaway to cheer me up. My wise friend who always gives the best advice. Not to forget the one who's wild and says "It's your Saturn return babes fuck it, you only live once". The friend who'd stay up all night and just hold my hand while I'd sob relentlessly not knowing why. The get up and go friend who would pick me up and take me somewhere I said I didn't want to go but just wanted to get me out the house for some vitamin D. That friend who snuck in and left a magazine with a face mask and some bath salts to make me feel loved while inadvertently reminding me not only what month it actually was but that I should probably exercise some self-care! And then that friend who no matter what, checked in on me even though I'd stopped checking in with them because I'd become so consumed by my own grief. I've painstakingly rebuilt my house and my heart since then and this album narrates it. Home is where the heart is x   ADELE 30 - November 19, 2021