About a year and a half ago, Adele thought she might have nearly enough songs for an album. Her manager wasn't so sure, and they brought the demos to Rick Rubin, who had given valuable input on 21 — even though Adele ended up jettisoning some of his productions in favor of her rougher takes. Rubin listened, stroking his beard, probably. He looked at Adele and told her, "I don't believe you."
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The original group of songs was lighter in tone than anything she's done. "You know the pop songs that are fantastic, but they don't have much depth?" says Adele. "They were all a bit like that."
"Adele was anxious to be finished with the new album and move forward with life," says Rubin. "I stressed the most important thing was to be true to her voice, even if that took longer and was more work... In the new material I heard, it was clear she wasn't the primary writer — many of the songs sounded like they might be on a different pop artist's album. It's not just her voice singing any song that makes it special."
"I actually took it really well,"
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Adele recalls. "When he said it, I couldn't work out if I was, like, devastated, going to cry my eyes out. And then I just said, 'I don't really believe myself right now, so I'm not surprised you fucking said that.'" Rubin and Dickins both told her it sounded like she was rushing. "And that's not a way to make any kind of record," she says. "Especially when I'm trying to fucking follow 21. So I went back to the drawing board, really."