Ladies and gentlemen, her…
[Video]
[5.71]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: The blustery Adele at 21 that wanted to set fire to the rain is all but a distant past. And the forgiving Adele who thought her traumas couldn’t become “Water Under The Bridge“? That was a fun thought at 25. At 30, Adele has realized that the torrents of her past relationships hasn’t even begun to pass — she’s still actively drowning in it all the time. “There ain’t no gold in this river/That I’ve been washin’ my hands in forever” she begins. “I know there is hope in these waters/But I can’t bring myself to swim.” Here, crucially, we see that Adele’s audience has shifted from her past lover to her son, and that the process of explains her heartbreak to him is uncovering new dimensions and possibilities that had remained underneath the surface. It’s this continence of metaphor and imagery through her different life eras — her continual reflection and evolution of self — that makes her discography feel so meaty and satisfying. If only the evolution of Adele’s self-narrative had extended to her sound.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: It’s an Adele ballad. It sounds like an Adele ballad. On one hand, I’m glad she didn’t try to make an Ariana Grande or Weeknd record; on the other, couldn’t she have spiced things up a little?
[4]
Andrew Karpan: Sure, it’s boring, but that’s exactly what it says on the tin: a perfectly polished request to let the singer off the hook — a reasonable request for a lead single, no doubt — and there’s no coincidence it’s where her long-bated breath hits its crescendos. Go eeeeeeeeasy on her and it’s a favor she returns; the muted production and pop-introspection give the record a strangely amber-colored ’70s vibe, a Fleetwood Mac B-side with a life of its own on Classic Rewind. That it doubles, if we take her word for it, as a communique to her 9-year-old son on the subject of divorce adds to this reading. What else is pure pop music other than messages to children?
[7]
Scott Mildenhall: This isn’t the first time — to her credit — that Adele’s lyrics have seemed like something offered for analysis in a Year 9 English lesson. A quickly jettisoned water motif, “baby”/”child”, “choose”/”chose”… these are broad strokes, primed to sweep listeners up and swaddle them in Emotion, or at least summon some deep-seated melancholy. But while it all serves its purpose as a quasi-documentarian dispatch, as that quintennial care package, it’s underprepared. It becomes hard to drift downstream with Adele when the transitions from verse to chorus do not flow, and the reliance on the latter — more specifically the Impressive Vocal — leaves it struggling to stay afloat. The autumnal echoes of “Hello” rest heavily: a cohesive capsule of catchphrase and climatic control that casts this as clumsy.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Like a salmon transplanted into a kiddie pool, Adele’s voice frolics and leaps all over the place, but it’s still clear she belongs in more alive waters.
[5]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Makes all the noises you would expect it to and does nothing else. It’s less overdone than “Hello” and lacks the carefully crafted drama of “Someone Like You” — her only competition is herself and this ends up in the middle of the range. I feel like a 89-era hair metal power ballad guitar solo would have really livened up the atmosphere, though.
[4]
Will Adams: Was Greg Kurstin contractually obligated to only use those muted, tuned kick drums for the percussion section, and nothing else? So much of “Easy On me” — Adele’s vocal, the harmonic progression, the Journey power ballad of it all — calls for dynamism along the lines of “Chasing Pavements” or “Rolling In the Deep”. Instead it’s frustratingly calm.
[5]
Nortey Dowuona: It’s mediocre Gladys Knight. I will take it.
[10]
Al Varela: It’s been interesting watching this crop of breakup/divorce songs/albums blow up this year. It’s only fitting that they all come back to Adele, returning to the pop world to do the same thing she’s done for the past decade and blowing us out of the water. But instead of lashing out against her ex or stewing in her complicated feelings, Adele knows exactly how she feels. She knows the split is coming. She knows their story is coming to an end. All she can do is brace for it, and ask for her partner to just let her down easy so it doesn’t have to hurt as bad when it finally does happen. And it’s not obvious if the breakup stemmed from personal issues, or realizing the two made a mistake getting married, or if it’s as simple as things didn’t work out. But it’s still devastating all the same, and you can hear it in Adele’s voice. It’s such a simple song. It doesn’t even have a major climax or breaking point. It’s just a straightforward piano ballad. But that’s all I wanted out of her, because she’s that good.
[9]
John S. Quinn-Puerta: Adele is a skilled vocalist, and in lesser hands, this would’ve been dull as a pile of bricks. But I feel like her performance, bolstered by a well deployed bass, could wear thin on repeat listens. I suppose, overall, it’s fine.
[5]
Dorian Sinclair: I find Adele’s approach to vocal technique somewhat irritating, but that by itself is not enough to justify a low score — I adore many singers whose voices drive other people up the wall. Nor do I object to piano ballads on principle. But if you are going to hang an entire song on just a vocal melody and a piano part, at least one of the two needs to be interesting on its own merits, and both components of “Easy On Me” feel very, very standard.
[4]
Vikram Joseph: I mean, this is exactly the kind of thing I’d dismiss as a stolidly-written – albeit beautifully-delivered – piano ballad that plays it much too safe, right up until it catches me off-guard in a cafe or a taxi and Adele’s plaintive chords and mixed metaphors take on a fleeting emotional potency they will never again achieve. I’ll let you know when it happens, but until then:
[6]
Anna Katrina Lockwood: I feel a personal sense of failure for not really vibing with this song — surely a testament to Adele’s almost supernatural likability — and my fondness for her has made it a real challenge to nail down why this one just isn’t hitting for me. Is her voice sounding a little reedier than in the past? Am I just not ready to accept a lovelorn piano lament before I’ve even had my booster shot? Is it ridiculous to be so bothered by Adele’s frequent, aggressive throat closures — even though her vocal tone is still truly god tier? Or, gods forbid, is this just not that strong of a tune? Whatever the reason, “Easy On Me” has left me unmoved, if fairly glum — so I suppose the song has somewhat achieved its purpose.
[4]
Alfred Soto: The year’s most OK single.
[6]