The Adele hype has been brewing since June of last year. The Adele album ‘19’ came out on Monday. Adele is now important because we’ve been told she’s important and yet she’s only just begun. Is she worth all of this attention? And can any brand new artist possibly live up to such grand expectations? Really, what I’m asking here is do you believe the hype?
For the uninitiated, if such people exist, Adele is the latest is a line of young British females to give the appearance of falling out of bed and into the pop charts. She has an indisputably fine voice in the Amy-Winehouse-white-girl-blues mould and a proper London-girl gob on her (see Winehouse again, plus Lily Allen, Kate Nash.) The teenage singer has chalked up a whole series of media nods and industry mentions that many more seasoned musicians would covet. Indeed, the key word in the Adele story so far seems to be ‘before.’ She appeared on Later With Jools Holland, Bjork to the left of her, Paul McCartney to the right, before she’d released a record. She’d had a specially created Brit Award, The Critics Choice, given to her before the rest of the nominations were announced and before her album was available to the public. Before anyone outside of south London had even heard of her she was attending the Brit School for Performing Arts with Winehouse and Nash, Luke Pritchard of The Kooks, Katie Melua and Leona Lewis.
Before, before, before. But where are we now? Reactions to the album have been mixed. The Guardian’s Dorian Lynsky noted that “Adele’s success seems preordained regardless, but next to [Winehouse album] Back To Black’s Tanqueray-strength heartbreak, 19 is more of an alcopop.” In The Telegraph Michael Deacon was in two minds: “Her music breaks as much ground as a pneumatic drill made from Plasticine. But she sings with unabashed passion…” Even BBC Music, Adele cheerleaders from the get-go, cautioned against going overboard, saying “her voice lacks a little soul and her songwriting a little depth.”
It’s enough to make you feel a little sorry for Adele Adkins the individual. New artists usually escape this sort of mediocre review, being simply ignored, giving them space to come up with something wonderful or to decide to jack it all in and become a teacher. Not Adele. Adele is important because we’ve been told she’s important. But will the pre-19 hype destroy her before she even reaches 20? Or is the album worth it, do you believe the hype?
It’s just kinda boring to my ears. I dunno.
To be honest I’ve heard so much about her I can’t make any kind of evaluation any more. I really resent being told what to like so forcefully and it’s coloured my view of the album. I just want to hide away until it’s all over.
My wife bought the album (from Tesco – I ask you…) and played it last night. I don’t remember whether it was during track 3 or 4, but I fell asleep. Pleasant enough, but Vampire Weekend is more my thing right now, along with pseudo-hipster indie kid smugness