Vulnerability Pays Off For Adele Again.

As we move through life, we suffer heartache, tragedy, hope, and happiness, sometimes all at once. So picking apart those emotions in retrospect can give us a really fresh coloring to lived experiences that we wouldn’t have had while they were happening.

It’s always interesting to look back at photos from a 16th birthday party, a conversation you were having with your first crush on MSN messenger, or a distant memory stored in the back of your brain. Those moments of nostalgia come with the typical reactions:

“What the bloody hell was I doing.”

“OMG! You can’t say that.”

Or the very fatal, “Oh no! What am I wearing?”

Cringe. What a lovely word. Made just for re-living emotionally loaded moments.

The one wonderful thing about having these thoughts and feelings from days past is that we can finally be open-minded about our feelings and emotions from that time. We can think from a more matured and open stance than from a younger, more immature train of thought. We’ve learned. We can let it go and laugh a bit now that our priorities have changed.

Adele is a perfect example of how looking at yourself from a mature perspective can really change you as a person. Get ready for an obvious statement. Adele is a magnificent performer. Her critically acclaimed album 21, sold 30 million copies, with her hit “Rolling In The Deep” spending 65 weeks in the UK charts and selling 14 million copies alone. Breaking numerous records, she is one of the most successful artists of this century.

Whilst the themes of pain, sadness, and anger really showed exceptional depth in 21, Adele created the album based on the ruin of her previous long-term relationship. We feel her. We’ve been there. We’ve all reacted in a very similar way. That’s why she’s sold 30 million copies of songs that should make us cringe (with theme, not music, because talent.)

However, times change. Adele has a new partner, a beautiful baby boy, Angelo, and time to just enjoy the fruits of her labours, which she well and truly deserves. With the album 25 released to massive success on the 20th November 2015, things are looking up.

I watched Adele on the BBC, just before the album dropped, and was enthralled with the maturity change. While she was more guarded about her family, she admitted that she may have been too open on 21, and regrets pushing past relationship problems into the limelight. Cringes belong in private.

That said, Adele owes her success to her vulnerability nearly as much as to her raw talent and drive. That’s certainly clear today, where she was just invited to perform at the February 2016 Brit Awards. And we’re all looking forward to it.