Adele
Simon Emmett*Adele didn’t go easy on us when she released her highly anticipated, heartfelt fourth studio album 30 on Friday (Nov. 19), via Melted Stone and Columbia Records.
Throughout the 12-track album, the queen of heartbreak anthems licks the wounds from her divorce with ex-husband Simon Konecki, salvages herself with copious amounts of wine, and holds onto the one thing she’ll never lose: herself.
Lead single “Easy on Me” has spent the last four consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts. Adele performed “Easy on Me” and three more songs from 30 — “I Drink Wine,” “Hold On” and “Love is a Game” — during her CBS primetime television special Adele: One Night Only, which averaged 9.92 million viewers, per time-zone-adjusted fast national ratings from Nielsen. On social media Wednesday, Adele shared a six-minute video of herself belting “To Be Loved” from her living room, and it certainly left everyone in a puddle of their own tears.
30 is the long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s 25, which had a record-smashing first week after selling 3.38 million copies in its debut week in the U.S. That was the biggest sales week of an album since Nielsen (now MRC Data) began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991. 25 spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and won Grammy Awards for album of the year and best pop vocal album of the year.
Listen to 30 below.
NEWS
Doechii may be getting a lot of flack from haters these days, but it surely feels less significant amid a lot more love, development, and pressure from everyone else. One aspect of her skyrocketing career that many listeners are curious about is how she will "fit in" with other femcees, which is a bit of a dismissive notion boxing all female rappers into the same box. Nevertheless, at least the Tampa native has another superstar in her corner. During a recent livestream with fans, Megan Thee Stallion revealed that a collaboration with her is one of the things she wants to manifest the most for her next project.
"I see Doechii, b***h, I love Doechii," Megan Thee Stallion remarked of the ALLIGATOR BITES NEVER HEAL creative. "I do want to do a song with Doechii. That is on my album wishlist. But I really have no song right now. "I feel like Doechii is the kind of person that you’d have to be in the studio to make a song with. I would like to hear a beat that she would like to rap over. Also, challenging myself to rap over beats I would not normally rap over, without losing myself."
Given that they have skill sets and interests in common – plus their track record of other female collabs – these two might spark magic in the studio together. This joins other developments that bode well for Meg's next album. Plies, for example, recently, dropped his copyright lawsuit against Megan Thee Stallion over her "Wanna Be" collab with GloRilla and Cardi B that sampled Soulja Boy. Hopefully that experience prevents more sample clearance misunderstandings in the future.
Meanwhile, Doechii will definitely drop a new album later in 2025, which will be her studio debut. Her previous mixtape won Best Rap Album at the Grammys this year, so who knows what a big debut will yield? It's also a good opportunity for Megan Thee Stallion to hop on, although this hypothetical collab would likely feel welcome on either femcee's records. In any case, we're keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that any link-up lives up to its potential.
