Yesterday (January 24) marked the ten-year anniversary of Adele’s legendary 2011 album 21, which has become one of the defining releases of the century so far. Adele marked the occasion over the weekend with an Instagram post looking back on the album.
Adele shared the album art and some other photos from the era and wrote, “Well I never! Happy 10 years old friend! It’s crazy how little I remember of what it was like and how I felt a decade ago. But Thank You from the bottom of my heart for letting us into your lives and letting me be a soundtrack to some of it x.”
The album has set too many records to list here without getting exhaustive, but here’s one bit of trivia: 21 only left the Billboard 200 chart for the first time in late 2017. Here’s one more: It’s one of the 20 or so best-selling albums ever and easily the best-selling of this century.
When announcing the album back in 2010, Adele wrote of it, “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. […] The whole reason I called my first album 19 was about cataloging what happened to me then and who I was then, like a photo album you see the progression and changes in a person throughout the years. I tried to think of other album titles but couldn’t come up with anything that represented the album properly, I kept swerving 21 thinking it was obvious. But why not be obvious?”