[Content Note: Culture of entitlement.]
Adele has written a note to her fans about her new album, 25, and it is lovely: "I feel like I've spent my whole life so far wishing it away. Always wishing I was older, wishing I was somewhere else, wishing I could remember and wishing I could forget too. Wishing I hadn't ruined so many good things because I was scared or bored. Wishing I wasn't so matter of fact all the time. Wishing I'd gotten to know my great grandmother more, and wishing I didn't know myself so well... My last record was a break-up record and if I had to label this one I would call it a make-up record. I'm making up with myself."
She ends the letter thus: "25 is about getting to know who I've become without realising. And I'm sorry it took so long, but you know, life happened."
I wish Adele didn't feel like she has to apologize for how long it took her to record and release her latest album. We aren't owed her work.
She says "life happened," as though life got in the way of delivering another album to us, but people who make art about life need to have time to live their lives, outside their work.
Observers of life must have something to observe.
To be clear, this isn't a criticism of Adele. At all. It's a criticism of the culture of entitlement that makes her feel she needs to apologize.
She doesn't owe us that, either.
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