30, Joe

30 for 30.

 

(1) This shit sucks. It always has. It always will. I cannot believe I just spent an entire week listening to goddamn Adele. I hate it. I fucking hate it so much.

(2) It's not something that I "don't get." It's not like ambient music, or post-hardcore, or something like that. I get it. I understand why this is popular. (3) It's not even like something like Post Malone, which is bad in a completely different way but similarly mega-popular. That music barely even qualifies as music at all, and yet people still love it. (4) This? Adele? It has actual melodies. The singer is actually competent. There is a structure to this music. It makes sense that it is popular.

(5) So when I say it sucks, I guess I'm really pointing the finger of accusation to the general populace. You—yes you. You like some boring ass shit!

(6) I've always hated Adele's music. It stresses me out that such a great vocalist is putting her talents to utter waste with the most vanilla bullshit blue-eyed-soul fucking trash. And it especially stresses me out that this is what we have decided as a culture to collectively enjoy. Earth is fucking doomed.

(7) Adele is music for people who say they "listen to pretty much anything." When people say this, they mean that they will listen to anything that the algorithm says is safe to listen to. They don't know what they like, and they give up their say in the matter. America as a collective whole has looked toward the sky and opened their gullets and have allowed the corporate tastemakers to spoonfeed them the most generic ballads that have ever been written. They take their medicine and call it art. Fucking bullshit.

(8) I refuse to equivocate in this review in the manner that I usually do. There's no need for it here. Adele isn't some niche artist whose reputation could be legitimately sullied by a negative review. She is one of the most popular artists on the planet right now, if not the most popular. (9) People still buy her music, that's how popular she is. (10) She is so popular that she literally put the vinyl production industry at a standstill because people are buying so many of her albums.

(11) So I'm doing nothing here. This is all hot air. I'm screaming into the infinite void. I'm punching up at a target so high that I could never possibly land a punch. This is just me getting out some of my frustrations for the week. Adele can handle it. She's untouchable.

(12) Fine, you want some equivocation? Here ya go: 30 is not comprised entirely of slow ballads. They are there in large numbers, but there are fewer than I—a man who has never listened to an entire Adele album before, let alone twenty times, jesus fucking christ—would've guessed.

 

(13) Look to "Oh My God," which I fucking despise, which does that fucking thing I hate where she's just using filler words instead of writing actually lyrics (the "mmmmmmm / yeaaaaaah" gave me hot flashbacks to when I raked Weezer for the same transgression), but which, sure, isn't a ballad. (14) She's trying something different. It doesn't work, and I fucking hate it, and it really is just boilerplate 21st century pop music by a different name, but sure, yes, (15) different than what I expected from Adele.

(16) Look to "Can I Get It" too, if you want, i.e. if you're looking for something that isn't a slow shitty Instagram-influencer-performatively-crying-on-camera ballad. (17) It's a Max Martin song, obviously. The man is brought in when you want a surefire hit. He is from Sweden, where all pop music producers are from. He knows that you need a whistle as a hook, and he puts one on here. (18) I have no doubt that "Can I Get It" is or was near the top or at the top of the Billboard charts. It is factory produced for your pleasure. Fuck this shit.

(19) Those two songs are right in a row, and if they stray too far from the tried-and-tested Adele, don't worry, there's "I Drink Wine" up next, which, I dunno, tries to be like a gospel song or something. It's boring and slow and feels like it's trying to be a meme ("all moms are alcoholics who hate their kids"). Get this shit away from me please.

(20) I will say this: I take offense to the charge that I dislike this album simply because it is made by a woman who is singing about her feelings, like I'm being sexist if I hate this shit. It's not the fact that Adele is a woman who sings about her feelings that bothers me. It's the type of music that she has decided should convey those feelings that bothers me. (21) We've reviewed music from plenty of women in the past who sang beautifully and from a place of sincere emotion, but who also had the tunes to back it up. Think Diana Ross, or Tina Turner, or Shania Twain, or Bully, or Yola. All of these women were singing about their emotions (some of them even specifically about broken romances), but they got fiery about it. They took sadness and turned it into power. They got creative with it. They didn't stand on a fucking stage and show the audience the single tear that is dripping down their face and then wait for the applause. (22) They took agency in their emotions. They made their emotions exciting for the audience. It has nothing to do with Adele's gender or her feelings. (23) In fact, I would probably hate this fucking dreck more if it was a man making it. (24) I know I'm not some paradigm of feminism. I've made plenty of mistakes in the past. But I am trying. I'm trying to enough to render fucking insane the idea that I dislike this music because it was made by a woman.

(25) I dislike this music, though, that much is very, very clear. (26) It was a cruel thing, to self-inflict this pain over the past week. I guess at least we have that in common, me and Adele. (27) We were both miserable. Except in my case, 30 just made things worse, whereas in Adele's case, she can dry her tears with large piles of money. (28) She has cracked the code, folks. She has figured out that America just love themselves some fucking ballads. If you make 'em ordinary enough, then they become palatable for all the people who listen to one fucking album in the entire year, and it's the one they bought at fucking Target.

(29) I'm the loser here. I know that. No one is denying it. And I'm a sore loser. I hate that this trite tedious bullshit has won. I hate that its victory is rubbed in my face every year that Adele turns a year older. Fuck this shit forever. Bury it a hundred miles underground, and only dig it up if Adele decides to start a punk band.

(30) GRADE: 1 puke out of 5 (my kids liked it, and I'm trying not to give 0/5 pukes to any art that they like, regardless of how terrible it is)