Her new album is on track to sell 2.5 million copies the first week - those are old school numbers!!
The fake ad on SNL was great: a Thanksgiving meal of jerkish relatives is going south; the young girl at the table walks over and puts on Adele and everyone comes together and sings along.
My family was watching that (on DVR the next day) and thought it was perfect. Adele has universal appeal that transcends mere “star singer” - even more than Taylor Swift who has transcended music to be a cultural force, but isn’t worshipped across the broader population the way Adele appears to be.
I’ve been thinking how she was immensely popular, took an extended break at the height of that popularity and sky rocketed right back to the top about four minutes after she returned. And, imo, deserves every bit of it. I can only hope it results in a new wave of female soul singers.
That SNL fauxmercial was awesome and I wondered what Adele thought of it. I mean, they really mocked her mannerisms, and accurately so. I’ve read that she gets terrible stage fright so I figured she wouldn’t appear in any sketches so that almost felt like her contribution to the comedy.
Also, can I just say how beautiful she is? Her skin and hair are to die for. And her hands are exquisite (despite her seemingly suffering from Shirley Bassey over gesticulation disease). When I watch her I think of how my mother always loved Barbra Streisand, for very much the same reasons.
I just went and listened to a handful of songs from her new album on YouTube and I gotta say, without any upbeat tunes like Rolling In The Deep or Rumour Has It, in my opinion: aye, we’ve reached Peak Adele and don’t need no more.
Please tell me your attention span is not that short.
Adele is sill years away from being thirty. Aretha Franklin became “The Queen of Soul” and cranked out hit and made the other stars of her day look like peons for longer than Adele’s been alive.
We need that kind of star again. You want her to retire that voice at age 27?
To be clear: my OP wasn’t complaining. I am genuinely asking. This release is massive and her ability to step back into her Oprah/part of your Family persona was back without a hitch. I see no reason she can’t maintain this level for decades and if the quality is maintained, I welcome it.
But given her current stature, can she get - what? - Bigger? Cross-over-ier? What happens past achieving Oprah status?
Not trying to be snarky but I don’t get what you mean by “Oprah status” in regard to Adele. Sure, she’s popular but she’s not “everywhere” in the same way that, say, Taylor Swift is. She doesn’t strike me as a public person or one who even desires publicity. I’ve yet to see her on a talk show (which doesn’t mean she’s not been on one; I’ve just not come across it) and I think she basically considers herself your average East End girl, and likes it that way. I think she’ll be around a long time, though perhaps not constantly.
If you go beyond Oprah-ness, they organize a religion around you
In years past, it seemed like Oprah was pretty much part of the fabric of society, but now that her show is gone and she’s more-or-less retired, she seems to be fading into a Walter Cronkite kind of figure, who considered a great person, but is from a time gone by.
The BBC had an Adele special on Friday night. One of the segments was Adele, in disguise, entering some sort of Adele impersonator competition. It’s really quite sweet:
Yes, something like that. Taylor Swift is the hugest pop star, but iconic for her Perfect-ness. Her non-target audiences often respect her craft of songwriting (e.g., Ryan Adams covering 1989), or style-icon status, or her power and business acumen.
Adele appears to have NO “non-target audience” which is why the SNL clip was so funny. And, per the quoted post above, folks respect her Direct Channel Voice of Perfection, but the LOVE her authenticity and openness and humor as much as her singing. She is a “member of the family” in a way Taylor Swift is nothing like.
That’s what I mean by Oprah-like status. And while Robin Williams had his haters, for the most part he was loved in a way that transcended “favorite comedian” status.
The BBC had an Adele special on Friday night. One of the segments was Adele, in disguise, entering some sort of Adele impersonator competition. It’s really quite sweet:
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That is lovely; thanks for sharing. For some reason I have never gotten a sense of her fun side but she pulled that off very well.
I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade, and I strictly see it from a artistic angle, because I’m not very interested in Adele as a cultural phenomenon and don’t know much about her personally other than her hits from the radio, but I REALLY don’t get the appeal of her voice or her songs. There was some kind of British soul revival some years ago, with two really good female singers and well-produced and written songs with Amy Winehouse and Duffy, but we know what happened to Amy, and Duffy somehow inexplicably vanished. And all we got left is Adele, with her bland voice and boring songs? It’s just so predictable MOR that it’s no wonder it sells like shit, but it gives nothing to me, quite opposite to the two singers I mentioned before.
Sorry, this sounds like a rant, and as person I find her quite pleasant, but I just can’t understand her artistic appeal.
I get her appeal. She has an amazing voice and her songs appeal to a wide audience. She’s a good role model for girls. And I like that she brought torchy ballads back to the Top 40, because they’ve been largely missing for the last 15 years or so.
But I do find her songwriting very bland. “Rolling in the Deep” was a fantastic song, but the songs on her new album don’t impress me. I would like to see her get more adventurous with her songwriting and arrangements.
