NEWS FLASH: I have an opinion about Adele’s 25.

Yes, that sentence was sarcastic. After all, the vast majority of what gets posted on Popblerd is music related, and there’s no music-related event bigger this year than the release of the British chanteuse’s third effort. Why wouldn’t I cover it?

How big an event is 25? Well, it’s looking to crush the first-week sales record *NSYNC set a decade and a half ago with No Strings Attached-at a time when music sales are less than half what they were in 2001. After a week of release, 25 will be the biggest-selling album of 2015. Crazy stuff…and great stuff if you think there’s value in the purchase and ownership of music (as I do). Even if I didn’t like Adele’s music, I’d be appreciative of the fact that she is able to make large amounts of people part with money for recorded music-something that’s becoming more and more difficult to do with each passing year.

The level of hype afforded 25 so far has probably created unfairly high standards. Given the cynical nature of many who listen to music with a critical ear-and the fact that extreme popularity breeds extreme contempt-I’m sure there are plenty of people who have their knives sharpened. After a couple of listens, here are my thoughts.

If you’re familiar with Adele’s music, you already know what 25 sounds like. She definitely didn’t do a Purple Rain/Around The World In A Day-type swerve with this album. If anything, 25 finds the singer playing it somewhat safer than she did on either of its predecessors. To my ears, 19 and 21 were a bit freer-sounding, a little sassier. This new album finds Adele tempering the (relative) edge of her first two efforts and entering proper adult contemporary territory. The names “Celine Dion” and even “Susan Boyle” rattled around in my brain a few times while listening, and while nothing on 25 approaches the pap that either of those vocalists is capable of conjuring up, there’s definitely a sense that the songs on this album are a bit more suburban-mom/elevator music-friendly. You’ll find a bit less tempo on 25 than you’ve heard from her previously, and the album’s abundance of sad piano ballads begins to become a little grating/boring, particularly as you reach the set’s back half.

Thankfully, Adele is capable of pushing emotional buttons that Celine has only been able to access sporadically over the past 25 years, and that Boyle will never come within range of. The woman’s songwriting and singing skills far outshine those of all of her pop chart contemporaries with the possible exception of Bruno Mars, who lends his talents to what surprisingly turns out to be the album’s least essential song, the weepy “All I Ask”. First two singles “Hello” and “When We Were Young” are very much what the world expected from Adele, but the songwriting is strong enough that they sound like continuations/modifications as opposed to simply retreads. The most interesting tracks to me are the ones that sound a bit risky by comparison. The Danger Mouse collaboration “River Lea” gives me a Cranberries vibe, while “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” serves as a reminder that Adele’s at her best when her heartbreak songs have a little bit of bite to ’em. Album closer “Sweetest Devotion” boasts super-huge stadium production, the type you wouldn’t be surprised to hear on a U2 or a Coldplay record. My favorite track is “Water Under The Bridge”, which has a down-tempo late-night vibe I’d compare with the work of Blood Orange…until the chorus pops up and you realize that Dev Hynes probably wouldn’t write a hook anywhere near this big. And it’s not the track’s only hook. If nothing else, it’s a master class on how to write a great pop song. The emotional resonance is icing on the cake.

The question I’m left with now is: how does Adele follow this album up? At this point, there’s no worry about living up to expectations; 25 was a smash from the minute it arrived on shelves (physical or virtual). I don’t necessarily want Adele to replicate past glories in the name of playing it safe, because I’m pretty sure that doing so would begin a slide down the slippery slope of diminishing returns. She’s still young enough that there might be some left-field surprises in her, but successful enough that she may not feel the urge to push/experiment (and there may be enough corporate involvement that experimentation might be discouraged in order to protect record company assets.) Although 25 is quite good (a solid “B” if not “B+”), it worries me a little, if only because there’s a faint whiff of stagnation on it that threatens to smell pretty awful if she keeps going down this road.