Adele - 21 (Original Press, 2011)

Ahh, who doesn't love a little Adele in their lives? This artist came up virtually out of nowhere when Rolling In The Deep was first released as a single in 2010, and the play counts on radio were unbelievably high. This album charted at #1 and stayed within the top 3 albums for 23 weeks. As of July 2014, the album has sold over 10 million copies. Bravo, Adele, and congratulations!

The greatest thing about this album: it's been pressed on vinyl. So let's review the sound quality, shall we?

When I first bought this record from a widely known record shop, I was pretty stoked on it. It took me a while to get into Adele, but when I did I fell pretty hard for her voice and the blues-y tracks she produced. Something about her voice, man, sends chills down my spine. I can also closely relate to her music, just like the other 10-million-plus people who have bought this album I'm sure.

Anyway! Let's break it down. The tracklisting is as follows:

• A1: Rolling In The Deep (3.49)
• A2: Rumour Has It (3.43)
• A3: Turning Tables (4.10)
• A4: Don't You Remember (4.03)
• A5: Set Fire To The Rain (4.01)
• A6: He Won't Go (4.38)
• B1: Take It All (3.48)
• B2: I'll Be Waiting (4.01)
• B3: One And Only (5.48)
• B4: Lovesong (5.16)
• B5: Someone Like You (4.47)

The record features all the songs we've come to love, with the exact same versions we've heard millions of times before (by now, I'm sure). So, how does it play on a turntable?

The first four tracks go by smoothly. The longer the needle skims over the grooves, I'm impressed with what I hear. You have to understand to all those new to vinyl: to turn an audio recording that was mastered and recorded digitally onto vinyl is complicated. Sometimes, the final product isn't always so pleasant (aka trebles are terrible, bass sounds flat, etc.). I find it funny, however, that XL Recordings, the record label Adele is signed to, makes it seem like everything had been recorded onto vinyl first, THEN translated into a digital file. C'mon guys, some of us aren't so stupid! We know how this works.

Okay. Getting slightly off-track. Back to the sound. Yes.

The sound quality is pretty good for a digital-to-vinyl release, I'm not gunna lie. The bass is there, definitely (and thank God for that!), the trebles are just at the right level, and the dynamics are fantastic. Slightly quiet, but again, digital to vinyl. It was bound to happen. The pressing, however, makes for weird sound warbles while the music plays.

Let me explain what I mean. "Warbles" indicates when a turntable's needle is being pushed awkwardly, and the sound coming out of the turntable sounds slightly flat. It's not quite pleasant. This happens if, when a record is playing, someone applies pressure on the tip of the stylus of the tonearm. It apparently, as I've learned, happens if the pressing isn't up-to-snuff and is off-center.

Yes. This pressing experiences warbles. Very slight, and if I hadn't trained my ears years ago to different tones in music, I probably wouldn't have picked up on it. But I did, which worried me. I for sure thought it had something to do with my turntable. I mean, it can't be the record's fault, right? But apparently it is -- every other record I own with properly centered pressings do not warble. Oh, by pressings I mean those rings of grooves you see on the record is pressed onto vinyl and we record collectors call them pressings. :)

I find that this happens especially on the first side. I mean, six tracks with grooves tightly pressed... I can see how that would cause some issues. They had it mastered in the 80s, though! So, because of that, the last-half of Set Fire to the Rain and the entirety of He Won't Go experiences awkward warbles in places where notes are held for longer than two beats. For some reason, that grates on my nerves.

Flip the record and begin playing again ... ah, fresh and sounds good again! On my pressing, it's a little more centered than the first side and results in more even tones. Everything sounds great until, what?! My favorite Adele track, Someone Like You?!

Let me just vent a little. The track before, which is just as beautiful as Don't You Remember, sounds just as great as the rest of the record. Lovesong is a beautifully-built song that sings of how even in the typical troubles of relationships, love still gives us those butterflies and slightly crazy. Okay, cool. But Someone Like You was my anthem of 2011/2012 and I even tried to master singing it (not a good idea, by the way, and no, no audio recordings of a cover shall appear on this blog). On the record pressing though, it sounds slightly muddy. Like how an MP3 would sound at any bitrate lower than 320kbps. Which is odd for vinyl to sound -- vinyl usually sounds clearer. But it's honestly so slight that a regular listener wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Alright, so, here's your conclusion for this record pressing of Adele's highly-popular album "21": 

• Sound Quality: 4.25 out of 5.
• This scoring is due to the two things mentioned above.
• Mastering: 4.5 out of 5.
• Overall: 4.5 out of 5.

Link to Discogs.com listing here.
You can buy this vinyl record from CDUniverse.com, Amazon.ca & Amazon.com.