After a long wait, 30, Adele’s latest album, came out in November. She followed the same pattern set with her previous albums by naming her latest after how old she was while making it. And like that pattern, the album meets listeners’ expectations across the board, yet at the same time has changed much in the way her age has. To date, Adele has released four albums: 19, 21, 25 and 30. Let’s take a look at how this latest album compares to her previous releases one by one: what’s changed, and what’s still the same as ever.

Adele released her first album, 19, in 2008—when, as the title suggests, she was just 19 years old. At the time, the United Kingdom was in love with music of a soulful, 20th-century sound, raw and honest lyrics and female singer-songwriters. Amy Winehouse’s 2006 album Back to Black was both the start and the pinnacle of the trend. Adele graduated from the BRIT School for performing arts and had planned to work in A&R (artists and repertoire) but ended up pursuing life as a singer when she was unexpectedly scouted by a label thanks to a friend posting one of her songs to MySpace, then a popular social networking site. She captivated people with her profound vocals, unaffected personality and candid lyrics. The fact that she was only 19 years old but possessed nuanced emotions made teens sympathize with her and filled the middle-aged with nostalgia. 19 was released in the days before Adele became a global sensation, but she was already building the framework we’ve come to know and love. As she continued to release singles she gained a foothold as an influential new artist in the UK market.

She found fame with her album 21. The record was successful in the UK but she also started to attract the attention of people in the United States, which represents a larger market. Her appearance on Saturday Night Live in October of 2008 was a particularly crucial moment for her. All eyes were on the show thanks to the appearance of then vice presidential contender Sarah Palin, and she won over the hearts of the American public with an amazing live performance of tracks from 19. Ever since realizing her potential for success after the release of 21, Adele has been active in the States alongside the UK and Europe. The album includes “Rolling in the Deep,” her first hit and what’s still considered her signature song. That’s also when she found her trademark style—top-heavy blonde hair and long false eyelashes that reflected her penchant for retro music—and she remains famous for avoiding autotune (in other words, she doesn’t apply correction to her vocal recordings). “Rolling in the Deep” concerns her post-breakup despair turning to rage, revealing the raw fury of Adele, who sings like she’s spewing fire even while sitting still. After vocalists like Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston fulfilled America’s love affair with divas who belt out their lyrics, Adele appeared before the nation as a real singer with a real voice. (Not that autotune is necessarily a bad thing; it’s just one of many techniques available to tweak audio, and it’s no exaggeration to say that nearly every pop singer today does a little autotune correcting on the songs they release. However, people still have their preferences one way or another when it comes to autotune because of the reputation it had for making singers sound like robots when people first became aware of it, and they came to seek out an authentic, unadulterated sound.) “Someone Like You,” released a little later, enjoyed great popularity as well. The song’s a classic, sweeping ballad, but doesn’t put on airs, instead appealing to reality, making for an elegant combination. People were equally drawn in by her enthralling voice and the way she expressed her feelings with all sincerity. Regardless of their demographics, people sympathized with the composed well-wishing to a former lover for their future happiness, assuring the song would become the breakup song of a whole generation. Thanks to 21, Adele was able to sweep the European and American music awards season, including the Grammys. Such was the birth of an international diva, beloved by all ages.

Adele’s follow-up album, 25, came out four years later. 21 had been a smash hit, and in the meantime, the artist released the title track for the soundtrack to the film Skyfall, becoming the most loved musical entry in the long-running 007 series and making Adele the most talked-about artist in the world. This must have led to immense pressure, but she lived up to expectations by taking the most straightforward course of action. Adele posted a letter to Twitter in the lead-up to releasing her forthcoming album, saying that while 21 had been “a break-up record,” 25 would be “a make-up record.” Adele cast her glance away on the covers for her previous albums but here she was making direct eye contact with the listener for the first time. The first track, “Hello,” opens with the words, “Hello, it’s me,” as though she’s speaking directly to the listener, reminding them that, though she may now be a superstar, she’s still Adele Laurie Blue Adkins from a working-class English city. It gave listeners the familiar Adele sound they craved while exposing the more complex parts of the narrative of life. During this time, the artist gave up drinking and brought changes to her life; a month before the album was released, she gave birth to Angelo with her then partner, Simon Konecki. 25 was finally released in the chilly days of November 2015 and showed off her true potential, breaking her previously set records one by one.

30, released this year, has come out six years after the release of 25, minus a day. The time between album releases keeps getting longer, but it’s just nice to see her returning when the cold wind blows again. The first single to come out ahead of the album was “Easy on Me,” a ballad that flows like water. Back in her early twenties, Adele was a singer fired up with emotions, best summed up by the opening line of “Rolling in the Deep”: “There’s a fire starting in my heart.” A key element of Adele’s music that appealed to listeners was the way she didn’t push down the pangs of a breakup but actually expressed her disappointment and anger openly. This contrasts with the emotion on display in “Easy on Me.” This time, it’s not just the lyrics that adopt the motion of a river: The piano, played furiously like an intense heartbeat in “Rolling,” returns in “Easy” but this time is played like a lazily flowing river. In a recent live performance at the NRJ Music Awards in France, a screen showing the undulating surface of blue waters made up the entire backdrop of the stage. The melody is pitched slightly higher than Adele’s typical range and she sings in a soft falsetto, giving the song something of a quieter, whisper-like quality. But just because her image has evolved from a fiery one to one of water doesn’t mean she isn’t still approaching her art with painful honesty. Her passion was once represented by fire, but is now comparable to a dive into deep waters. The biggest reason for the shift in tone is likely that she intends her music first and foremost to be heard by her son, Angelo. Perhaps it’s best to view it as a message not for him now, at the age of nine, but a future version of him when he’s able to understand why his mother decided to get a divorce.

As the first track on the new album, “Strangers By Nature” breaks a long silence between releases and is reminiscent of the music of 1940s and ’50s crooners like Frank Sinatra with its classic chord progression and melody. The current started by “Easy on Me” moves up and down through the different songs of varying styles. The included tracks deal not only with the surface of divorce but cover a range of emotions she could feel because of love from all different angles as well, including the good times with her ex-husband and the maternal love she feels toward her son. “To Be Loved,” the penultimate track, is a ballad backed only by piano. Its heavy use of melisma (singing multiple notes for a single syllable) highlights the artist’s lesser-used vocal agility rather than her rich tone she’s known for. The technique works to paradoxically reveal Adele’s tender inner feelings and ultimately makes for an impressive standout on the album. The style and the way it unfolds are not unlike singer-songwriter Carole King’s 1971 album Tapestry, which she released after her own divorce. The influence of 1960s girl group pop, where King was prolific, is somewhat easier to hear on 30’s closing track, “Love Is a Game.” It’s here that the album closes with lush choruses and fades out with lavish orchestration. While the record speaks to Adele’s personal life, the whole thing feels like watching a classic movie thanks to the tracks that ring of the good old days of American pop music. At one point, so strange was the popularity of the Beatles in the US that it was referred to as the British Invasion, but these days people seem to welcome with open arms an English singer following in the footsteps of American pop music’s legacy. Notwithstanding some of the complicated issues between the UK and the US related to history, culture and racial awareness.

One month before the release of her latest album, Adele held her first live stream over Instagram. When asked what the theme of the album is, she coolly answered, “Divorce, baby. Divorce.” Despite her naturally funny and laid-back attitude, it couldn’t have been easy to break up with her partner of eight years. In fact, she admitted in an interview that there were times when their child had a hard time because of his parents’ divorce. There’s no need to explain how you feel in the wake of a breakup; no matter how much music she makes about those emotions, they’re still her own. Moreover, Adele was never one to share much of her private life. The only things we could gather during the four-year gap before 25 and the six years leading up to 30 were her marriage, her divorce and the changes to her body from exercising. Because of Angelo, though, she has no choice but to be upfront about the divorce. Young people who will be impacted by their parents’ divorce deserve to be in the know, yet it’s never an easy thing for the parents to provide an explanation despite being beholden to them. As we listen to Adele’s newest album, we’re once again made to consider the complexity and weight of life through hers personally—we think about the artist’s journey from her fiery youth to the ebb and flow of her parenthood as we reflect on our own lives.