Adele: Inside Her Private Life and Triumphant Return

Adele wanted to modernize her sound, to add some synths and drum pads, to move away from the young-fogey vibe of 21 — on “River Lea,” her track with Danger Mouse, she sings over choirlike keyboard chords created from her own sampled voice. “This time, it was about trying to come up with the weirdest sounds that I could get away with,” says Epworth, who co-wrote two tracks on 25. “This album feels like it fits in maybe more with the cultural dialogue instead of being anachronistic to it. It’s almost like she’s trying to beat everyone else at their own game.”

There’s roughly a full album’s worth of outtakes from 25. Adele is ruthless in her quality control, and was still making final tweaks to the track list when we met. “Some songs are not fucking good enough,” she says. “And I think that’s where a lot of people go wrong, thinking that people will buy any old shit from you.”

Adele celebrated a recent birthday at Kurobuta, a Japanese pub-food spot with a cultivated rock & roll vibe; The Guardian described it as both “insanely delicious” and “ridiculously expensive.” Tonight, she’s returned, and the restaurant has arranged for us to have a private candlelit room in back, down a small flight of stairs. We have a comically huge distressed-wood communal table to ourselves. Sometimes it’s good to be a random girl from London.

As we study the menu, which is heavy on fried food, Adele is amused to hear I’m trying to eat low-carb. “Let’s cheat,” she says, persuasively. Behind her are various vintage rock posters, including the cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold as Love. “Let’s both cheat. It’s my cheat day. Let’s go mad!” She looks at the menu again. “I’m going in! Going HAM — hard as a motherfucker!”

She glances at an empty corner. “Last time we were here, they had a TV in there,” she says. “They must’ve taken it all out. But it was showing, like, hardcore anime porn. It was just mad! It’s a bit off-putting when you’re eating, like, sushi and they’ve got all the hardcore porn stuff on.”

She orders an amaretto sour — what she calls a “Days of Our Lives” drink — but then changes it to a glass of sauvignon blanc. “I don’t know if I should be that fierce,” she says. “I just remembered I’m being interviewed.”

Adele is aware that certain critics have used her “classy” image and music as a cudgel against the Mileys of the world. She is really not into it. “I’d rather not be the person that everyone gets pitted against,” she says. “If they do decide to get their body out, I would rather not be that person because that’s just pitting a woman against another woman, and I don’t hold any more moral high ground than anyone else. So that has pissed me off a bit. Not that I’m going to start getting my tits out now!”

She continues to think out loud. “Would I show my body off if I was thinner? Probably not, because my body is mine. But sometimes I’m curious to know if I would have been as successful if I wasn’t plus-size. I think I remind everyone of themselves. Not saying everyone is my size, but it’s relatable because I’m not perfect, and I think a lot of people are portrayed as perfect, unreachable and untouchable.”