Adele (3) – 19

Adele gives us her first work of art. Listening to this in 2025 is very interesting because we’ve seen her push herself to make even better music, dial in her sound and write even better songs. It’s cool to see how far she’s come. That said, this is a really special album. She shows skill beyond her years, and at the time we had no idea a full blown superstar was being born.

I opened a brand new copy and it had numerous fingerprints and swipe marks from fingers. I put it through ultra-sonic cleaning bunches of time and it didn't make any difference. It was so noisy that I couldn't concentrate of the music. I'm guessing this was pressed by RTI since fingerprints and scratches are their trademark. I've seen more pressings like this from them then I care to think about. I guess I'll have to make do with the cd.

The album itself is fantastic, Adele’s best in my opinion. But the sound quality is quite poor. Badly mixed, very harsh and a lot of distortion. It could do with a good remaster.

This album went mega and you can see why. Big songs, great hooks and a top voice set Adele up for world conquering stardom but she still had time for tender moments such as her cover of Cure’s Lovesong. A career high she looks incapable of matching again.

Covered in hairline scratches, even though it’s new. The company producing this needs to go after whomever is pressing it. Unplayable, even the replacement sent. Too bad bc it’s a great album, but I’ll wait until they do this album justice.

This pressing is terrible. It sounds like they used the CD master to press vinyl records or somelthing...
I returned my copy to the store: the store owner agreed and refunded me.

Bought brand new, arrived covered with numerous hairlines. Sounds horrible even after wet and dry cleanings. Nonstop clicks and pops.

Sounds like she's in the room singing to me.Thankfully she's not or she'd see me openly weeping.

The quality of the pressing is really low. I can sense how cheap the vinyl and the jacket are made, very light and thin. Apart from that, there are some surface noise along the way, which made it worse. Moreover, the cold shoulder is also distorted in some parts. overall, it's a 2.5/5.

Fantastic album but some distortion with the pressing on parts of Chasing Pavements and Cold Shoulder but a great pressing otherwise.