ADÉLA’s ‘PRIMA’: All 11 Tracks Ranked

ADÉLA’s debut album, PRIMA, has officially arrived — and it’s one of the sleekest pop albums of the year.

Born and raised in Bratislava, the capital (and largest) city of Slovakia, ADÉLA entered the pop scene’s radar in 2023 when she participated in Dream Academy, HYBE and Geffen Records’ joint “global girl group” reality competition show. Though she moved to the United States the year prior, bringing along laser-focused pop ambition and dance training from both the Vienna State Ballet and the English National Ballet School, ADÉLA was one of the first contestants eliminated from what would eventually become KATSEYE.

In 2024, less than a month after the Billboard 200-topping group’s docuseries debuted on Netflix, ADÉLA made her debut with “Homewrecked,” a fiery dance-pop single that presented a gripping affair narrative and laid the foundation for her singular, outsider-breaking-in approach to pop self-mythology. “Superscar,” another early fan-favorite, followed soon after, with the announcement of her signing to Capitol Records and the release of her The Provocateur debut EP landing in 2025.

This year, ADÉLA has released a steady stream of conversation-building singles, while honing her bombastic, dance-driven stage show on the festival circuit and as a support act for Demi Lovato’s arena-filling It’s Not That Deep Tour. During her support set on Lovato’s trek, ADÉLA performed several songs that would eventually end up on PRIMA, including “Ain’t in LA,” the song that made her the first Slovak artist to reach the Billboard Hot 100 (No. 61). ADÉLA co-wrote each of PRIMA’s 11 tracks — alongside contributions from songwriters like Julia Michaels and Theron Thomas, and producers such as Blake Slatkin, Dylan Brady and The Dare — resulting in one of the most concise, clear-eyed debut pop albums in recent memory.

From the second “KGB” raucously kicks off the LP, ADÉLA announces herself as a hungry, at times headstrong and hedonistic pop star who revels in both cynicism and her innate underdog status. She’s a 22-year-old Slovak girl trying to make her American dream — global pop superstardom — a reality while holding on to the idiosyncrasies of her own culture in the face of one of the most domineering and pervasive aesthetics in the world. When she sings of “working the night shift to learn English” on “KGB,” she’s cultivating a touchpoint that connects virtually all immigrants (and their children), leaning into an approach to pop music that invites the listener to participate in her tireless grind, as opposed to forcing them to gawk from the very bottom of the ladder.

That style of pop songwriting is precisely why “Ain’t In LA” has become her ADÉLA’s breakthrough hit — and why the sparse, confessional, early Billie Eilish-esque “Therapy” is the LP’s most arresting track. As her Auto-Tune-drenched voice whisper-sings. “I wanna move my mom out her, but I don’t have that kinda money, so I/ Have to talk to the people that I have to talk to/ They are old white men, and they’re so annoying/ But they hold the keys to my future,” across a despondent piano line, ADÉLA taps into a level of frankness about navigating the music industry that only someone whose journey unfolded on a reality show can. Prima is a brisk listen that leaves quite a bit on the table — it is a debut effort, after all — but it breezes through a slew of vignettes that find her navigating the bitter, lonely end of romantic relationship (“Hitachi”), the fallout of her father’s extramarital affair (“Red Bottoms”) and maintaing control as a young woman in a business dominated by sleazy older men (“I’m the Man”).

Prima certainly houses songs that fail to elevate intriguing individual compositional elements into a complete, memorable record (“Fantasize”) and tracks that offer stale perspective on tried-and-true topics (“Boys”), but those relatively low points barely cast a shadow over the LP. In an era rife with pop singers who don’t really know exactly what they want to say or why they want to make music, ADÉLA has put the entire scene on notice with PRIMA. Vision is everything, and she has one of the most consistent, unique and enthralling ones in the game right now.

Here’s how Billboard ranks every track on PRIMA, ADÉLA’s debut studio album, from worst to best.