no adele thread yet?

a worldwide number 1 hit if ever there was one

always weirded out when people use this line to praise a song. so it's about as good as "the time (dirty bit)", then.

anyway re: adele, i wrote this at the jukebox, but i was totally shocked by "rolling in the deep" - i'd hated everything i heard off her first album, so to hear her do something w/genuine gravitas and personality was a surprise. what happened to her in those two years?

(i don't think it's quite amazing, though - still a bit reverent to its influences)

yeah well adele was so clearly part of the a&r rush to replace winehouse before she ODed so its fair to assume that her first album might have been somewhat manhandled into shape whereas this one has the legitimation of **big name producer** rick rubin and I think that things like that tend to grant ppl a little more autonomy maybe. i mean obv this is speculation.

xp yeah 'classic' isn't a word i'd bandy about willy nilly but that's what comes to mind to me too re: Someone Like You.
writing credits are as follows:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_%28Adele_album%29
very much the Florence vibe; writer shows up with bits/ideas/bare bones, Epworth et al finish em off, take a half/third of the publishing. Adele herself has said the writing is "60%" hers.

also a useful reminder not to write off artists based on debuts made when they were a teenager, even if the hype and press line are tedious - certainly i don't expect songwritery artists (which adele is, i guess) to find their voice at that stage, and if they do then they're a rare exception

xp

what age is this chick??

the clue is in the album titles - i know, such a lame thing to do ONCE let alone twice

(i don't think it's quite amazing, though - still a bit reverent to its influences)

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Friday, January 21, 2011 11:11 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

i really like the song, but on a formal level, i'd state this differently. i think the "old motown" crowd would have had a little more play and spikiness in the backing. as it is this chugs along in a straightforward rock kind of way. i think if they had been reverent on that level it would sound less retro, if that makes sense. it's kind of white-stripes-y

i'd go with that - i was referring more to her vocal being reverent. i really like the arrangement, though.

also i've just listened to "someone like you" and...not feeling it, it's leaving me as cold/bored as the stuff off the first album. brit school ersatz soul, you are never too far away :(

oh shes my age

She's 22.

I definitely agree she has grown a whole lot since her first album (though there were a few choice songs on that one - "Right As Rain," "Cold Shoulder,"). 21 has some truly remarkable moments - I'd consider "Rolling in the Deep" a classic already, and other standouts for me "Set Fire To Rain," "He Won't Go," the bridge in "Rumor Has It" (incredible). She does have a tendency towards the maudlin and some of the songs are over-arranged, but yeah - I love how she melds all of these influences that I wouldn't necessarily like on their own - rockabilly, there's a definite classic rock influence on some tracks. Such a great voice too, obviously

yeah Rumour Has It is a barnstormer. dunno much about your man Ryan Tedder but hats off to him for his studio trickery anyway.

Someone Like You is in the itunes Top 20 and it's only an album track so far. The people have spoken! Currently the album is outselling the rest of the UK album chart combined. Hats off madame! http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/sessions/2011-01-27_adeleliveloungespecial

okay her cover of "Lovesong" is great

Thought she did an amazing job on "Someone Like You" at last night's Brits. Clearly a song with direct personal resonance, as she was on the brink of tears by the end of it.

"someone like you" has returned me to my original standpoint that she's a hack and a journeywoman. so dull.

The song is OK-to-good, but I thought the performance was outstanding, and highly affecting.

No one with a voice that good can really be considered a hack, but she's just a bit... boring.

bad thread

-- blueski, Friday, January 4, 2008 2:43 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

it's here for the long haul, skip.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, January 4, 2008 2:47 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

we did it

20/02/2011 - Adele equals Beatles’ record to lead Official Charts Brits Bonanza

Adele’s Someone Like You rockets up the Official Singles Chart from last week’s number 47 to become the UK’s new number one after her powerful live television performance at last Tuesday’s Brit Awards, while her current album 21 heads the Official Albums Chart for a fourth week, the Official Charts Company announces today.

Not content with achieving the chart double of simultaneous number ones in the nation’s Official Singles and Official Albums charts, the twenty-two-year-old artist boasts two more Top 5 hits this week; her single Rolling In The Deep and her debut album 19 are each at number four in their respective charts.

Adele is the first living artist to achieve the feat of two Top 5 hits in both the Official Singles Chart and the Official Albums Chart simultaneously since The Beatles back in January 1964 when their singles I Want To Hold Your Hand and She Loves You were numbers two and five and their albums With The Beatles and Please Please Me were numbers one and two.

Adele’s phenomenal achievement spearheads a huge surge in sales for all the artists who won or performed at the Brit Awards 2011. Total album sales for Brits’ artists were up 70% week on week with Laura Marling’s album I Speak Because I Can recording the biggest chart leap from last week’s number 80 to this week’s number 21.

Finally listening to 21. I like her, but I really wasn't in a hurry to hear it I guess. Too bad, because this is great!

she's a hack and a journeywoman

http://www.kaitaia.com/funny/g2/d/14063-1/Snoop.gif

She's no hack. Someone Like You is thumpingly predictable - seemingly designed for X-Factor cover versions - which makes the Brits performance all the more impressive.

okay her cover of "Lovesong" is great

It is really good, I was wondering whether you would like it or not.

Tiring though it is to be typing the words "Nabisco OTM" once again, this first para sums up exactly how I felt about the Someone Like You performance:

Sometimes you only really start appreciating someone like Adele when she’s singing a bad song. There’s some workmanlike, blandly tasteful arrangement lolling behind her like a boiled potato; the lyrics have gone all banal; the string section seems to be courting viewers of whichever network-TV drama needs to score a pensive montage ... and yet the main thing you’re thinking is: Who broke Adele’s heart, and why would they do that, and can they not hear how marvelous she is?

Full review here:

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/02/adeles_21_its_the_singer_not_t.html

Why is everyone talking about how it's intentionally constructed for future television use? The songs sound pretty honest to me. I'm I just not as cynical as I used to be?

There's something very generic about the chord changes and arrangement of Someone Like You - it seems calculated and I think the honesty is all in the voice, ie in spite of the song rather than because of it. But then these days it's pretty hard to write a straightforward big-sounding piano ballad that doesn't sound like the closing scenes of Grey's Anatomy.

i fuck w/ this -- the world needs a good dramatic piano ballad every once in a while

her voice gets kinda weird tho when she goes into her upper registers

i loved "chasing pavements" too

i really like rolling in the deep

i really like rolling balls deep

Snrub otm, it's a great single! don't really care for anything else i've heard, but i haven't heard all of 21 yet

her Lovesong cover is an abortion btw, DJP u mad

yeah, the cover of lovesong is awful, easily the worst track on 21.

i mean, it's better than the 311 version, at least, though...

What is with you people over there:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/04/adele-breaks-madonnas-album-record

Adele is some hot garbage son.

crazy how massive she is now

lol fat joek

I kind of despise this woman so it rather irritates me how much I love 'Rolling in the Deep' and 'Set Fire to the Rain'. Thankfully 'Someone Like You' is utter tosh!

True they are better songs. Can't stand her voice though. I just can't understand why she is so popular. Her image seems to appeal to people this kind of 'realness'. The matey, realness in interviews is such a turn off.

Maura notes something:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2011/05/adele_selling_out_commercials_festivals.php

Thats a great read.

I would love it if no one ever used the term "sell-out" to earnestly describe a professional musician ever again.

(to follow on from Maura's point)

i'm not really under the impression her diyness or whatever is going to be pushed here, "discount" tickets were for $200 in ny

("discount" being through whatever service my benefits provider provides which isn't usually all that much)

Adele never makes any claims to being DIY or having low ticket prices so I don't know what you mean there.

Maura is overstating the Gaga comparison (though it nicely provides her piece with a relevant angle.) eg.

funny, given Lady Gaga's constant assertions that she, too, doesn't lipsync, and writes her own material.

Yet in the Independent piece lip-synching and songwriting are never mentioned and the only contrast made with Gaga is her extreme ubiquity.This interview was covered in the Mail who chose to present a similar set of quotes to elaborate about Adele's anxiety attacks and self-image problems. I suspect this is actually the most common narrative for Adele, rather than as the anti-Gaga/women in music interpretation.

Anyway, I don't really see what Maura is so butthurt at Adele about. It's not even clear if the original Q interview presents these quotes as Adele's "rules". I haven't read the Q interview but most likely these are just random quotes which have been summarized this way by the writer at the Indie. Maura buys the idea that there's some kind of self-righteous personal manifesto at work, which allows for the accusations of supposed hypocrisy ("is autotune OK if you only use it during the marketing of your music?...Is appearing on TV shows for a straight week and taping an episode of Unplugged OK because it's "about the music").

I think you're mistaking what Maura thinks about Adele directly with what she sees as the rhetoric around her -- which, in fact, dovetails completely with your own point!

this album sounded trippy af to me, the first side anyway

Not really an Adele nerd, but aren't her titles the age she was when started on the album?

it’s okay this is a safe space

I can only imagine what this album sounds like. “Ooh, thirty…thirty now”

why is she balling about not having a concert? jfc

bawling rather lol it's just weird

Because she's so sad. Maybe she'll release an album about it. She could call it "Lost Vegas."

I always wished I caught this show The timing was ridiculously perfect - like they booked these small venues before she really turned into a megastar, and things just rapidly blew up during the course of the tour. Apparently even then-mayor Rahm Emanuel pulled some strings to get into the show.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgpJL9WzXMYFyIvA7gJ0XTtTB27hwT3HU

Honestly, those are my favorite kinds of shows, where you catch the act at a place you are already well aware they will never play again.

I worked at Tower Records in Manhattan in the early 90s. Nirvana came in and did about a 45 minute set in the store right when Nevermind was released. My biggest memory of the event was that they were fucking loud.

It's especially perfect when they're doing their best material. Nevermind goes without saying, and in Adele's case, I actually think her albums have gotten worse each time out - the first is still my favorite, the second is uneven with great highlights, and both were the only ones she could draw from when she did that tour.

I thought she sounded like Amy Winehouse when I first heard her.

she was a huge Amy fan - iirc Amy was why she started singing!

i saw what i think was adele's first american show. she was fine but i think i left early.

Aw, this warms my heart:

https://www.vulture.com/2022/01/adele-facetime-fans-las-vegas-residency-apology.html