Top 50 2011: Someone Like You

So we all cried into our pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia while listening to this song on a loop in our headphones sometime this year, correct?

Seriously, this song is heartbreaking in the best way possible – I get the same chills from this that I get from the bridge of “Melt My Heart to Stone” off her first album, 19.  It might be _the_ definitive breakup song.  For all of “Rolling in the Deep”‘s wallop and disco-blues-gospel awesomeness at the beginning of 21, this was the punch to the gut at the end that made it hurt so good.  Adele’s performance of the track is perfect – solid in the middle, but just rough enough around the edges to let you know that the tears are forming in the corners of her eyes, too.

As a contrast, album bonus track “I Found a Boy” has a bit of the opposite message of “Someone Like You”, but it’s just as powerful.