I'm an Adele fan- and she has a lot of them. Her album 21 is the ninth best selling album in history, and on a list of the top 25 top selling albums it is the only one recorded in the past 10 years and one of just two that make the list that where recorded in this century.
Adele has a very powerful voice and mostly good songs. I however cannot listen to her for extended sessions. The sound quality of her recordings that are to my ears edgy and very compressed do subtract for her musics appeal. In Australia at least there was a huge frenzy over Adele as one of the best singers of today when her huge hits broke. I am far more a fan of Hannah Reid from London Grammar......now were talking. If You Wait is a modern classic of an album for mine. Hannah has power with perfect restraint. Interlude Live is one of my very favorite songs. Our opinion is ours and I'm sure some will disagree but that's fine. As long as we can all get along disgusting this and other topics kindly..
Although I don’t own any of her stuff other than the 7" 45rpm "Skyfall", I think she’s a wonderful talent. From what I hear, that she's very self-deprecating in concert, kind of sets her apart from the divas.
Adele style for me is grating although I do understand her commercial attraction. I don't care for her voice, she has a strong voice however its irritating, on the other hand a singer like Shirley Bassey also has a strong voice but I do like its delivery and when she sang 'Gold Finger' it is peerless, in the lap of the gods!
I rank her right down there with Mariah, Whitney and the other shouters. The rest of the world can like her but I have not heard anything I would listen to again.
+1 on Imelda May “Flesh and Blood”. Ladies like her underrated, and under appreciated. No marketing machine behind her I guess. Only heard Adele once, did not care for it. I like female singers though. Joni, Sade, Dinah Washington, Aimee Mann, The Internet (Ego Death), Aretha, Sergio Mendes Brazil 66, Mamas & Pappas, Diunna Greenleaf, Supremes, etc., etc.
@cd318, That Imelda May album is very different from her rockabillly/retro stuff. It's really elegant. I think someone big produced it like T Bone Burnett.
@tablejockey - good for you. The music will always prevail because there was no faking with Ian Curtis. I’ve still got my original UK pressing (but no turntable)! I’m also happy with my 4 CD Heart and Soul box which might be the best digital transfer to date.
@jbhiller - possibly a more sympathetic producer could tame the raucous nonsense being displayed - GM did wonders with Killer, I mean Cilla Black. Those early string laden lush productions of his hid her vocal deficiencies quite well.
From cloakroom attendant to superstar in easy steps - provided you had the drive, the contacts and the savy to know which way the the wind was blowing.
Other talents like Beryl Marsden and Pete Best decided to take different paths.
I'll check out that Imelda May album. Not heard any of her stuff for years, maybe a bit retro but I don't remember it being painful to listen to, or anything like it!
Adele is supremely talented. She has the pipes to rival anyone out there. She's got control and power. She can convey emotion. Her lyrics are readily accessible and discernible.
But, and it's a big but, subjectively I've always thought she needs a better producer and some creative direction. Why does she go 0 to 60 or even 90 on every song--or seemingly every song? Why is the music so tense that I want to pull my hair out? Could she just allow some air into the studio for all of our sakes? Air, space between notes, rests....she needs all of this in my opinion. Oh, and can't she do some other voices than belt-it-out.
Take a listen to Imelda May's album, Life Love Flesh Blood. Adele can you please, for the love of your talent make something like this? PLEASE!
Adele is amazing but needs her own George Martin to help her get to her peak.
I have a kinda rare Joy Division "Unknown Pleasures" Given to me in 1980, by a friend who was hip to the changing music scene. I was still clinging to my Zep and Stones.
Its not an uber rare Brit press, but still a US early copy. It's had numerous plays on awful tables, but surprisingly the music prevails!
She's good, but I despised how she was promoted to superstar status so early in her career. Becoming a superstar takes staying power and at least a few years and at least a few albums of high quality music. After her first album, some people were calling her the greatest female singer ever. Nope, that label comes with sustained greatness.
@tablejockey, well you know the music industry was never about talent, never about art - it was always about sales and it always will be. The biggest selling artists have done little else than provide largely forgettable landfill for future generations to puzzle about.
Seriously, if you manage to listen to some of the biggest selling vocalists concentrating on the vocals above the music, you are likely to suffer.
In some cases like Adele, Aretha and other experts of empty vocal pyrotechnics largely lacking any sense of humanity etc - really suffer.
Sure, quality acts like the Velvets, Joy Division, Nick Drake amongst others who sold next to nothing in their time have been exonerated saleswise somewhat in the due course of time but the only act to fabulously succeed on both commercial and artistic grounds were, well you don’t need it spelling out do you?
Oh OK then, let me say it that without the Beatles to lend it artistic and commercial respectability the music industry does indeed seem to atifify the famous Hunter S Thompson quote,
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side."
Just listened/watched the youtube "Someone Like You"... She's flat most of the song.. Not impressed by this live performance... So... NO to the question.
I divide musical performers into two groups: those I can live without, and those I can't. From the little I've heard from Adele (another 1-name entertainer?), she is in the former category. I hear much worse these days (not just these days. I always despised The Velvet Underground/Lou Reed, Jane's Addiction/Porno For Pyros/Perry Ferrell, and a whole lot more), and some I like more. I wish her well, she seems like a great person.
Hmmm. Well I think she has a nice voice, but I don’t really care for her records. However my wife LOVEs her music so I have to like it by proxy. Lol. If we go on a long car trip un-doubtably there will be some Adel involved :(
I repeat (at 67) I really like her music, her songs, her performance, her (apparent) personality, pretty much all of it. Oh, and it has little to nothing to do with dynamic range, I see her as a real talent. But clearly some here strongly disagree. Not a surprise, we tend to not agree on very much, as a race of humans, these days.
*squinting Fry meme* can’t tell if most here are too old to like anything new or don’t remember singers of their own eras that sounded pretty much the same.
Whether or not you like her music she is a poster child for the impact of the loudness wars. Check the dynamic range dB. “19” was just about listenable (average DR 8), “21” was bad (DR 7) and “25” ear blisteringly awful (DR 5).
And to think Greg Kurstin won a Grammy for this rubbish - luckily his work with his own band (The Bird and the Bee) is well recorded and sounds great.
@tablejockey , I’d go further and say that her ’music’ should be banned from all public places, or at least the ones I might frequent. She even managed to wreck a great song like Skyfall, and to think it was a Dylan song that helped to launch her.
Her nauseous stomach turning ’singing’ is beyond gross. Of course I would never wish to stop any masochists from indulging in such painful gruel - as long as they kept such noise pollution away from me.
No amount of layering of strings etc can make that garbage vocal palateble as far as I’m concerned. I hope I’m not being too vague on the subject.
When you say Adele's music, do you mean her voice, her songs, or the total package? My sister introduced me to her (I'm into primarily Americana/Roots/Rural music, ignoring the mainstream/radio stuff), and my immediate reaction was, well at least she has "real" songs, not electronically created bs. And that she is a real singer, unlike the majority today. Now get off my lawn.
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