My Current Soundtrack: 21, by Adele

Back when we lived in Texas, Mark started doing the cutest thing: he would buy me a CD as a gift and leave it in my car's CD player. I would start the car and be surprised when, instead of the usual NPR, I heard some great new music. It doesn't happen as much lately (that doesn't work as well with iTunes), but I was pretty charmed on Wednesday when Adele (rather than Steve Inskeep--no offense, Steve) unexpectedly started off my morning drive.


Anyway, 21 is fabulous.  I hadn't heard much of Adele's music, but Mark read the review in Entertainment Weekly and figured it was right up my alley.  Oh, how right he was.  Her voice is unbelievable--big and velvety but a little raspy too.  "Rolling in the Deep" and "Rumour Has It"--the first two tracks on the album--are my favorites.  The best adjective I can come up with to describe them is stompy, which I realize is inelegant.  There is this boom-clap-boom-clap refrain in "Rolling in the Deep" that makes me want to dance in a most undignified way.  It actually reminds me a little bit of the harmonica breakdown in Outkast's "Rosa Parks."  You know--stompy.

This is an album full of breakup jams, which is why I am enjoying it mostly on a purely aesthetic level.  (The only drawback of being happily married is not being able to really wallow in heartbreaking music.)  21 would have been the perfect musical Snuggie to wrap myself in after my one truly apocalyptic breakup.  In fact, it would have saved me the effort of making that depressing mixtape, though I suppose that was therapeutic.  The following lyrics from "Don't You Remember" are particularly heart-stabby in retrospect:

"But don't you remember, don't you remember
The reason you loved me before?
Baby, please, remember me once more."

These lyrics take me right back to that awful feeling of being forsaken, and really, who among us hasn't been there?  The words alone don't convey it, though; Adele's voice is sometimes an angry, impassioned wail (as in the chorus of "Rolling in the Deep") and sometimes a mournful plea ("Don't You Remember").  Either way, it's impossible not to get caught up in it.