Adele's Musical Genre: Exploring Soul, Pop, and More

Here’s a wild thought: can you really put Adele in a single box? Her voice has soundtracked heartbreak, hope, and huge nights out. She pulls from deep, old-school soul, but then you hear global chart-topper pop right in the next track. Yet every radio DJ or playlist still needs a genre. Where does Adele really belong?

Tracing Adele's Musical Origins

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born in Tottenham, London, in 1988. She grew up obsessed with legends like Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald, which is where her love of classic soul started. When you listen to ‘Hometown Glory’ or ‘Someone Like You,’ it’s obvious she studied those powerful ballads and the emotional energy that artists in the soul and jazz traditions poured into their music. Her breakthrough album ‘19’ already leaned heavy into this territory, built around her raw voice with simple instrumentation. Critics from The Guardian said at the time, “Adele’s voice is nothing short of astonishing, pulling emotions from places most singers never go.”

Adele genre debates started early because her voice never really matched what was happening with Top 40 hits then. Her music felt timeless precisely because it didn’t try to fit current trends. Still, there’s a huge pop accessibility in her songwriting. She crafts hooks that stick in your head for days, but she isn’t shy about drawing on bluesy pain and the gospel world’s uplift. By the time she dropped her second album, ‘21,’ people started calling her the “queen of heartbreak anthems,” but the real soul fans knew she was sneaking all kinds of subtle nods to roots genres—think Dusty Springfield, Aretha Franklin, even some Motown grooves.

Her background isn’t just musical. She studied at the BRIT School, which is known for producing UK chart stars like Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis. There, Adele absorbed a broad palette: rock, soul, R&B, and straight-up pop songcraft. It set her apart. While the UK music scene flirted with electronic and indie in the 2000s, Adele went the other way, reaching for something more classic and universal. “I can’t write songs like Lady Gaga or Rihanna—they’re amazing but I’m not them,” Adele told Rolling Stone in 2011. That genuine attitude about her influences made her relatable and set the stage for the genre-mash she does so well.

Bursting onto the Scene: The Sound of Adele’s Albums

People mainly know Adele through those big, unforgettable albums with number titles: ‘19’, ‘21’, ‘25’, and ‘30’. Each one feels like a time capsule—not just of Adele’s life, but of where the whole chart-scene sat. But what genre are these records, really?

Let’s break it down. ‘19’—her debut—was a slow-burning introduction, almost acoustic at times. It’s rooted in soul, but there’s plenty of folk and some mellow jazz running through it. Go back to ‘Chasing Pavements’ and you’ll hear elements that wouldn’t sound out of place on a classic Carole King album. Fast forward to ‘21’ and things really explode. Songs like ‘Rolling in the Deep’ slam gospel-like backing vocals into a stomping blues rhythm. There’s a sense of drama there, a pop catchiness, but underneath it all pulses soul. Billboard called ‘21’ the “blueprint for heartbreak pop,” but even with its surface hits, Adele’s vocal phrasing and subtle nods—think a touch of Memphis blues or late-night jazz club—keep her way outside typical pop boundaries.

When ‘25’ landed in 2015, the pop elements got even more polished. You have monsters like ‘Hello’ (who hasn’t shouted that chorus?), but inside the album, quieter tracks like ‘Million Years Ago’ sneak in bits of folk, soul, and even some bare-bones singer-songwriter territory. Adele herself once joked, “I’m just a soul singer in sparkly shoes,” in her interview with Graham Norton—and it shows. She has a way of using the biggest, most universal pop machinery, but delivering it with a classic sense of pain and honesty from throwback genres.

Her latest, ‘30’, is even harder to nail down. There’s more jazz influence; there’s classic soul and R&B; and then in tracks like ‘Oh My God’, she adds upbeat, slightly more modern, almost danceable touches. Yet every album comes back to that heartbreak-anthem core. Even critics reach for more than one genre: Pitchfork’s review of ‘30’ described it as “pop for grownups, soul for modern heartbreak, and the sound of a world-class singer doing what nobody else can.”

So, are these albums pop, soul, R&B, or what? Really, Adele doesn’t just blend genres—she makes them work for her. That’s probably why she keeps cleaning up at every award show. Her discography taps into the DNA of multiple genres and spits out something uniquely her own.

Genre Labels vs. Why Adele's Music Connects

If you’re still trying to nail Adele to one genre, it helps to look at some hard numbers. Check out the table below:

There’s a reason fans across the world connect to Adele more than to, say, typical pop stars who rule the charts for six months and disappear. Her music wears its genre influences right on the sleeve, but her ability to mass-produce relatable feeling brings new people to that sound. Someone who never listened to soul in their life hears ‘Someone Like You’ and, for that three minutes, suddenly gets it.

Pop music tends to chase trendy production—the hottest beat, the fastest hook—but Adele has built her reputation doing almost the opposite. Her ballads move slow. Her voice is the centerpiece, not the background. Critics and even Spotify playlists might pop her into “Pop” or “Adult Contemporary” or “Soul” bins depending on the day, but Adele herself said it best:

"There’s no genre, really, when it comes to feelings. That’s what I make music about—real things."

That cross-genre pull didn’t just happen naturally. She works with heavyweight producers—Paul Epworth, Greg Kurstin, Mark Ronson—and every one of them brings their own style. Epworth added bluesy, driving energy to ‘Rolling in the Deep’, while Ronson is famous for creative throwbacks that touch funk, soul, and pop. The result is a sound that feels timeless, always tied back to those roots of heartbreak, big vocals, and rich melodies.

If you dig deeper into how radio and streams actually tag her music, things stay blurry. On Apple Music, you’ll see Adele living mostly under “Pop” and “Soul,” but on Spotify there are sub-genres like “British Soul” and “Blue-Eyed Soul” cropping up in her artist bio. The music industry loves its boxes, but nobody seems to agree about which one Adele fits in best. She’s nominated in pop categories one year, soul the next, adult contemporary in another—and wins no matter where she lands. This flexibility is rare and is a big part of her staying power.

Tips for Spotting Adele’s Genre Moves and Influence

So, where does this leave you if you want to pick apart Adele’s biggest style moves for your own playlist—or maybe if you’re a new artist hoping to learn the craft? Here’s a practical guide to listening for genre in Adele’s music:

• Listen to the vocals first. Adele never hides her influences. If you hear a big, emotional belt, that’s classic soul. When she goes soft, breathy, or slides into jazz phrasing, that’s a nod to her early favorites from Ella Fitzgerald to Roberta Flack.
• Check the instrumentation. Gospel-style piano and backup singers? That’s soul and R&B territory. Acoustic guitar with storytelling lyrics? She’s channeling folk and singer-songwriter traditions. The clue’s in the arrangement.
• Pay attention to song structure. Even in a power ballad, her use of blues progressions or Motown-like rhythms jumps out. Sometimes, she’ll surprise you with a subtle shuffle or swing—little cues from older genres packed into a chart-topping frame.
• Think about the producers. Big names like Quincy Jones or Mark Ronson come with their own sound. Look up who worked on the album, give their other projects a listen, and you’ll start to hear patterns that point to pop, soul, blues, or even a touch of rock.
• Read the liner notes (or Google her interviews). Adele herself talks a lot about what inspired a track. She tends to shout out her musical heroes, so you know exactly which genres she’s channeling at any moment.
• Head to live bootlegs or concert recordings. Adele dials up the soul at her gigs—piano, raw vocals, stripped-down arrangements. If you only know her polished radio hits, you’re missing the genre-hopping magic she brings to the stage.
• Compare with her peers. Want to test if something’s “Adele-style”? Stack it up against Amy Winehouse, Sam Smith, or Leon Bridges. You’ll start to spot where Adele leans more into pop or where she jumps straight into deep soul territory.
• Check streaming tags and playlist placements for trends over time. You’ll notice a slow but sure evolution: more pop polish since ‘21’, more jazzy undercurrents in recent years, but always that core ballad-soul mix.
• Measure the music’s “widescreen” effect. Adele’s mix of classic and modern gives old-school genres a new home on pop radio, making them feel as urgent as any TikTok trend—without sacrificing any of her roots.
• Don’t forget the lyrics. She draws you in with raw, straightforward language that could fit a blues tune as much as a folk ballad—one more reason to love her genre fluidity.

To sum it up: Adele isn’t one genre. She’s a sound you recognize after three words, no matter what radio station you’re on. To this day, nobody has mapped the heartbreak-pop-soul-jazz-blues highway quite like her. Maybe that’s just called being Adele—and if streaming stats are anything to go by, we all want to take that trip again and again.