Adele first captured my senses as I was visiting my parents in Virginia. I was watching MTV and the video for “Chasing Pavements” began to play. It was around 4 or 5 am so I had the volume very low but the faint voice I heard was just not matching the face I saw. As I began to squint and search for the remote which had to be somewhere on my rickety old childhood bed… the voice was familiar yet unique and could not possibly be coming from the woman on the screen. “Where the hell is she from?”, I wondered, “and why I haven’t heard about her before now?” And so began my research and I immediately became a huge fan.

The British soul singer entered our home again when I purchased 19, her debut album. She was now ready to meet my father, a major critic of music – he approved and we spent some time discussing how her voice seemed so be channeling two of his favorites, Ruth Brown and Etta James. I instantly began to worry that not enough people would pay attention and that we’d never hear from Adele again. A few new songs she featured were nice but that wasn’t enough…

In comes “Rolling In The Deep”, Adele‘s new single from her sophomore album 21 and I’ve been unable to stop playing and singing it (horribly) for days. Describing the album she says,“it’s different from 19, it’s about the same things but in a different light. I deal with things differently now. I’m more patient, more honest, more forgiving and more aware of my own flaws, habits and principles. Something that comes with age I think. So fittingly this record is called 21.”