no adele thread yet?

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!

I realize the article is obstensibly about the media but there's potshots at Adele herself which are groundless - at least based on the Indie article.

I wish people would give the "soulless Autotune" criticism a rest, too.

Again, neither Adele nor the Indie article mention autotune at all.

no, but Maura did

Right. The majority of the supposed signifiers of authenticity mentioned in the VV piece are not present in the Independent article. So what's the point?

Meaning you've never heard anyone complaining about Autotune's supposed inauthenticity at all in any context? Quite a happy life you have.

seems like a bit of a popist knee-jerk reaction to traditional rockism yet as a popist myself has to be said i'm not picking up what she seems to be from the Indie piece. the Q piece hasn't even come out yet! i mean unless she's read it already? doesn't seem so. so this is a Voice piece, about an Independent piece, about a Q piece that no-one's read yet?!

and then the title says that its rebutting other articles that havent even been written yet

xxpost to Ned. A happy life despite many autotune complaints. But the most common complaint I hear about autotune is not really it's lack of "authenticity" but rather that it is aesthetically displeasing and is an extremely over-used production trick.

has to be said the cover looks pretty good!
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/281914/ADELE-Q-MAGAZINE.jpg

I think Maura's piece is a little premature - responding to arguments that haven't been made yet. Why shouldn't Adele adhere to certain principles if she likes?

To be fair, I don't think the point is that Adele shouldn't do what she wants to do; I think Maura is identifying an easy, semi-nonsensical rhetorical stance (Adele vs Gaga) and pointing out why it's stupid before other writers get a chance to latch onto it.

but thats a weird thing to do? surely you could find enough things to write about that you dont need to make up stances that other critics have

It's been an undercurrent to Adele's whole deal/appeal the whole time, though, this sense of a 'real' female singer inspired by 'real' music! Hell, for a lot of recent UK acts -- Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Duffy, etc. You can't handwave something that's been intrinsic.

It's not an undercurrent, it's the absolute cornerstone of her marketing/appeal, as much as it is was with Ocean Colour Scene or whoever.

I don't think "weird" is the right way to look at it; it's more that this is a thought piece pointed towards other critics that is also being presented to "the rest of us". The seeds of this are absolutely floating out there; I was listening to a lot of The Current a couple of weeks ago (indie rock public radio based in Minneapolis) during their pledge drive and their playlist was basically super lol indie (The Decemberists got played a HELL of a lot) mixed in with old Public Enemy and many, many, many promos for a competition to win tickets to see Adele. This was all intermingled with testimonials written by people giving pledges hailing the station for playing "real" music (like The Decemberists). It's a small sample size, I admit, but the sentiment Maura is reacting against is out there.

My only beef is with the autotune criticism, which I feel has become its own tired, overused dismissal tactic.

this is another can of worms that i perhaps shouldn't open given that i'm on deadline, but the way in which adele's body image is also conflated with her "realness" has made me kinda uncomfortable of late too - like, it's gone beyond applauding someone who refuses to ~conform~ to the ~ideal~ and into making the logical leap that because she doesn't diet, it makes her a more worthy (or better?) artist - and then you see quotes from her like "my aim in life is never to get skinny" and it's like, well done, you have replaced one weight-based goal with another. and then you see her bringing up nicole richie as someone she doesn't want to look like (someone who's had v public health issues re: her own weight), which is about as tasteless as you get.

xpost Sure, and I can understand the online journalism pressure to respond quickly, even it seems premature. But I do think Adele deserves some credit for the stance she takes on commercials and arena gigs, which is a distinct issue from whether NPR types think her music is "real".

xpost i don't think she can be blamed for 'replacing one weight-based goal with another' just because of one off-hand comment she made in an interview one time.

Maybe it's a good idea to see her as an opinionated individual rather than a trojan horse for revanchist rockism.

Lex I think your knee's jerking a bit there - that Adele quote is obviously a flippant and jokily defiant comment rather than an actual statement of intent. When you consider how many nasty comments she must get about her weight (coupled with the fact that it probably IS much healthier to be Adele than Nicole Ritchie) I don't really see the problem.

Maybe it's a good idea to see her as an opinionated individual rather than a trojan horse for revanchist rockism.

Hah, or this, alternatively.

Maybe it's a good idea to see her as an opinionated individual

yeah this is the line i see pushed a lot but her opinions aren't particularly earth-shattering and are in fact kinda dumb. this is like la roux (except not as bad), when someone who's perceived to be a counter to ~mainstream pressure~ says bolshy things (that are no better when you think about them) they're held up as this SMART REAL GIRL WHO SPEAKS HER MIND~~ - trading on being outspoken even though what they're saying isn't v interesting

She's not a counter to mainstream anything but what she's reacting against is too all-pervasive and damaging for you to just handwave away as part of some lazy rockism.

you guys are too smart to fall for her marketing schemes. you won't let a 22 year old woman push your buttons. you are to be applauded.

yeah this is the line i see pushed a lot but her opinions aren't particularly earth-shattering and are in fact kinda dumb. this is like la roux (except not as bad), when someone who's perceived to be a counter to ~mainstream pressure~ says bolshy things (that are no better when you think about them) they're held up as this SMART REAL GIRL WHO SPEAKS HER MIND~~ - trading on being outspoken even though what they're saying isn't v interesting

There are very few people who are actually interesting, is the thing, and most of them are not making wildly successful music at the moment.

I mean, right now the currently successful pop star who has come off the most interesting to me in an interview is Katy Perry, and that is solely because of how little conflict she sees between her stage show/songs and her Christianity.

i think it's cool that she's a bigger, um, pop star. makes her more real in my book. big girls with big voices always kind of the exception in pop? but it's refreshing anyway.

and she really is just using her voice to sell songs. that's pretty authentic!

i think it's cool that she's a bigger, um, pop star. makes her more real in my book.

really??????

i mean that attitude right there is what i'm reacting to. who cares what size she is? what bearing does that have on her music?

i mean i've heard the music everywhere but i didn't even know what she looked like until recently. her "image" isn't really a big deal over here from what i can tell.

Ha-ha. Right on Scott.

it doesn't matter as far as the music goes but image is such a huge part of the pop business. so it means a lot really.

"Who cares what size she is? What bearing does it have on her music?" is a bit of a disingenuous line to take though, especially when at least 95% of girls who are allowed to get ANYWHERE in the music industry are only allowed that far because they're conventionally attractive.

It'd be like if there was only one black performer in the charts and for someone to be all "Who cares what colour they are? It's the music that counts" and you would be the first to rail against that.

I think there's a kind of lazy cognitive shorthand going on here on both sides of the debate "she's real because she doesn't use autotune/is a bit heavier than other popstars" vs "she's rockist because she talks about being heavier than other popstars as if this makes her better than Beyonce/Gaga/whoever".

And I'm saying this as someone who doesn't even like Adele's music.