Kultura / Culture 32 | Muzika» Music Adele has topped the charts once again, withherlatestalbum, 30, taking the title of 2021’s fastest-selling album in both the U.S. and the UK. ndwhenitcomestosellingalbums, Ed Sheeran and Adele have always been friendly but serious competition to one another, which is why Sheeran hurried at the end of last year to releasehis newalbumbefore Adele’s. His = Equals albumwas released20daysbeforeAdele'sown30, A l bum 30 Adele breaks all records With her latest album, the singer knocked Ed Sheeran’s own new album, released 20 days prior to hers, off the top of the charts while Sheeranhimself evenonce admitted that Adele is the only artist to have sold more records than him over the past 10 years. And Adele did indeed immediately knock him off the top of the charts. Her latest album’s first-week chart sales of 261,000 represented the best first week for an album since Sheeran's Divide was released in2017.TheBritishgirl also toppled legendary Swedish pop group Abba from the throne for 2021, breaking their record of “only” 204,000 firstweek sales of comeback albumVoyage. However, her 30 didn’t manage to emulate her unsurpassed 25, which remains the fastest-selling album of all time in both the U.S. and the UK. It was 2015 when firstweek sales of 25 totalled an incredible 800,000 copies. Apart from receiving plenty of lovefromthepublic,30alsoreceived wide critical acclaim, withmany critics considering it her best albumyet. This latest album is again dominated by Adele's classic sound - a combinationof classic soul andpolished pop. And given that she’s sold tens of millions of copies of her albums and that more people watched her recent interview with Oprah Winfrey than watched the Oscars or the Grammys, it’s no surprise that this singer-songwriterisremainingfaithful to thatwhichwe’ve grownaccustomed. “Why would I shake up my sound?” asked Adele in response to a remark about her latest album resembling the previous one. “No one else is doing my sound…” Andthat’spreciselywhyEasyon Me, the new album’s lead single, is a recognisableheartbrokenballadthat served as a great reintroduction to Adele’sfaultlessvoiceafterasix-year absence. 30 is also the first record she’sreleasedsincehermarriageended, and many of the tracks bear the hallmarks of sleepless nights spent grappling with the consequences of thoselifechanges.Andherinterviews onthistopichavebeensomewhatbewildering. Adele claims responsibility for the divorce, but it’s difficult to graspwhatcausedthebreakup.There were no fights, no screaming, no infidelities, she says, just a slow realisation that she was really unhappy. Thealbumlingersonthatunspoken, unidentified sadness, and the singer often comes across as emotionally confusedas she stumbles over the wreckage of her life. However, Adele resisted classifying this as her “divorce album”. If nothing else, she said, it was about becoming divorced from, and then rediscovering, herself. “I feel like this album is self-destruction, then self-reflectionandthensortofself-redemption,” she told British Vogue. And that’s what distinguishes this record from her previous three albums. Songs like Hello and SomeoneLikeYouwereneatlypackagedin the language of awronged lover, but with30everytrackiscomplex,messy and uncertain. There are no simple conclusionsandeasyanswers.Adele has gone through hell and emerged with some of the best songs of her career.Andsalesareobviouslybreaking all records simply because we’ve been missing Adele all these years. Foto:Profimedia.rs/AIexTodd/Avalon
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