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album reviews

Adele



19 6 ( 2008 )
Daydreamer / Best For Last / Chasing Pavements / Cold Shoulder / Crazy For You / Melt My Heart To Stone / First Love / Right As Rain / Make You Feel My Love / My Same / Tired / Hometown Glory

We've still got Amy Winehouse, just about. Why do we need another one already? The press likes to create scenes around often disparate groups of artists to boost record sales. It's easier to market a scene than a bunch of individuals. Yet, Adele doesn't show the soul or inspiration that Winehouse is able to demonstrate. One suspects it's because she's normal. 'First Love' for example is a soft musical excersize allowing the vocals to come through. They do so, in a mannered and hookless fashion. It's instantly forgettable fare. With 'You Make Me Feel My Love' Adele offers no insights during the three and a half minutes this piano and strings decorated ballad provides. Well, there's nothing actively wrong with it, but there just isn't any genuine soul that even an ounce of rawness and roughness around the edges would provide. Amy Winehouse, if we must use the comparison we are invited to make by Adele's marketing people, can own a tune. Adele can't quite manage this yet. 'Crazy For You' is a funny song. Well, it makes me smile as Adele sings over acoustic guitar playing a pretty, jazzy pattern and Adele spells out that she's 'Crazy For You' through very clever lines. Her voice, whilst still sounding somewhat affected, singularly fails to annoy because her swoops and sweeps match the character of the lyric. Character! That's the key word, all new artists need to demonstrate an all important distinctive character.

Often a tune pops up on the album that pricks your attention, the opening 'Daydreams' is very nice, for instance. Yet, ultimately, it doesn't keep jumping out at you. Inevitably, you put the album away, rarely to listen to it again. It's a cleaning up around the house album, something to put on that you don't really need to concentrate upon. On the otherhand, I can quite imagine a slanted window, large and letting glorious sunlight in your clean and white bedroom. You're layed on the bed, facing down, reading a book. It's a pleasant spring afternoon and 'Hometown Glory' by Adele comes on and you manage to be transported. Everything seems absolutely perfect for the four and a half minutes the song takes up. When it ends, you'll never be able to repeat the process, unfortunately. It's that kind of album, offering up talents and mini glories just the once. It's a first coat, rather than the finished article. Her voice needs to sound less mannered and more natural, her lyrics need to avoid cliches. She needs to perform upbeat fare more often, tunes such as 'Cold Shoulder' which almost come across like an audition for Massive Attack. All in all, '19' is a mixed bag. Fans of Amy Winehouse can apply if they like, for everyone else, buy an Aretha Franklin album, won't you?

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