Althouse: Adele.

February 13, 2012

Adele.

1. Delightful on "60 Minutes."

2. In depth analysis of why her songs make people cry.

24 comments:

Scott M said...: Who was the idiot that wigged out when Adele won one of awards? It was linked all over the place last night, but the Grammies keep making people take it down.

I bought the album after my 7-year-old was belting out "Someone Like You" at the top of her scratchy, Stevie Nicks-like voice while trying to play the piano accompaniment. It's excellent.; 2/13/12, 9:48 AM
traditionalguy said...: The woman has a big body and a big soul; and she totally gives herself away to the audience. That's entertainment.; 2/13/12, 9:53 AM
FWBuff said...: Her songs are also great barometers of my teenage daughters' moods. When I hear "Someone Like You" blaring out from the iPhone docks upstairs, I know they've broken up with their boyfriends again!; 2/13/12, 9:59 AM
rhhardin said...: I like voice leading myself.; 2/13/12, 10:01 AM
Joe said...: I find the tonal quality of her singing very repetitive and tiresome, with each song being almost indistinguishable in tone, but to each their own.; 2/13/12, 10:07 AM
edutcher said...: Oh, Hell, she's not fat. A little chubby, maybe, but that's it.

But, yeah, a good-sized girl.

As for singers who make people cry, this is why I limit my repertoire to Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Fats Domino.

Maybe the Drifters.; 2/13/12, 10:23 AM
Chuck66 said...: I think she was one of the musical acts last night. The rest were experimental theater.; 2/13/12, 10:24 AM
bagoh20 said...: Warning: This is for girls.; 2/13/12, 10:34 AM
bagoh20 said...: This blog could use more discussion about field dressing and fishing, just to round it out a little.; 2/13/12, 10:36 AM
KCFleming said...: "In depth analysis of why her songs make people cry."

Autopsies of music are like explaining jokes.

Bill Holm:
Poets and Scientists Find Boxelder Bugs
Useful for Both Metaphor and Experiment

Crush a boxelder bug.
After the little snap
a tiny liquid drop
the color of honey comes
out on your thumb.
The boxelder bug does not
hear this sound.
The red reacing stripes on
his black back, like decorated
running shoes, finally don't
run anywhere, anymore.
You, on the other hand, had done
what your life prepared you for:
kill something useless and innocent,
and try to find some beauty in it.; 2/13/12, 10:41 AM
Amexpat said...: Thanks for the link. Without knowing anything about her, I had assumed she was one of those silly Idol stars that I try to avoid. Perhaps because there was press about her covering Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love", which is a song I don't care for and for some inexplicable reason has become trendy to cover.

She came across as real and likeable in the interview and, from the few snippets I heard, she is continuing the British tradition of blue eyed soul started by Dusty Springfield.; 2/13/12, 10:42 AM
sonicfrog said...: What a wonderful girl! (I really mean woman... but girl sounds better)

On stage fright. It's funny, in the 20ish years I've been performing in front of an audience, I rarely ever get stage fright. I LOVE playing and performing and being on stage. Even though singing and playing bass can be a struggle sometimes, it's a boat load of fun! Stage fright is normally an alien thing to me. Even when I'm doing lead VOX, I'm also playing bass, or if I'm not actually play on a song, it's still hanging around my neck, which kind of gives me a faux security as if I'm hiding behind something. And am always part of a band, and I lean on them psychologically whether I realized it or not.

I realize that dynamic now.

I know this now because recently I've been performing at open mic nights here in Fresno and for the first time I can remember, have experienced real stage fright. Not the puking kind thank God, but real nervousness to a degree that I've rarely experienced. I have been learning to play guitar over the last year and a half. Though I'm happy with my progress so far, I am very much still a student, and it shows sometimes on stage. But that isn't what makes the difference. Hell, I've made plenty of "oopses" on stage while playing bass and or singing, and shrugged it off. Hey, in spite of the popular delusion that they always perform flawlessly, it happens to professionals on stage quite a bit more than they would like. No, the difference is that it's just me on stage. There is no one to lean on musically or laugh with together on the stage if a silly flub occurs, and, more important, I'm starting to roll out my own songs, and HELL, I don't want to screw them up. It's not that I don't care about getting the cover songs right, it's just that my songs are so much more personal, they are an extension of myself and I want to get them right. Which leads to some serious stage fright.

So, for the first time, I know; 2/13/12, 10:53 AM
SteveR said...: I happen to like her but understand others may not. That's fine but most of the criticism is silly, IMO. No one is making you listen and please, bringing up her weight? What year is this?; 2/13/12, 10:59 AM
traditionalguy said...: If her vocal cords go out on her again, she can always become the spokesperson for Weight Watchers.; 2/13/12, 11:17 AM
chuck b. said...: That album is solid, but not great. (Although halfway mark it does start to grate. [Note fancy wordplay on great, grate.]) Simply deleting track 7 (Take It All) would do a lot to improve things, imo.; 2/13/12, 11:23 AM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: That "60 Minutes" piece was fantastic. No act, just a real person.

I guess Whitney Houston et al. sounded the same way at the start. Let's hope....

Now, whether she has the range to go farther than just this is another question.

Enjoy the ride Adele.; 2/13/12, 12:52 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: I don't get it, but I've only heard one song, recommended by someone on Facebook. I made it up to the second verse and got bored.

As far as her weight (which I know nothing about) what do I care? Message to the "wellness" cult:

Music is for your ears,...; 2/13/12, 2:01 PM
michaele said...: I enjoyed the interview last night. For the time being, she has a refreshing authenticity. She's the anti-Gaga. She doesn't distract with grand productions...just sings about real emotions in a real voice coming from a real body.; 2/13/12, 3:15 PM
Der Hahn said...: Audio crack for chicks, and the soundtrack to Kate Bolick's life.; 2/13/12, 3:39 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: apologies for that ↑.

I learned of her through the interpreters loving her songs. This puzzled me greatly. I mentioned it here. How did it happen that her two big songs off the 21 album were picked up as favorites by people who are -- doing what? -- practicing? showing what they've learned? showing how they do it? showing their iconographic idiosyncratic interpretations?

But all that made me love her too. I was curious. She sounded country to me. It freaks me out when British people sound perfectly American, like Hugh Laurie and Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave. Then in interviews they go right back to being British. Then I go right back to studying their studied Americanisms and pick out the little things they emphasize.

Chelsea Handler asked her, "Why 21?"

Adele answered, "It's how old I was when I wrote it."

Which would also answer the 19 question if one was formulating.

I was very pleased to add those songs that the deaf kids and the interpreters favored to my playlists. But I must I have an issue on their interpretations. All of them did something clearly wrong. There are too many to bother specifying, but they make the same misinterpretation.

Adele's Someone Like You is about a lover who is not over the person who broke it off and who has already moved on. Adele writes:

Never mind, I'll find someone like you

I wish nothing but the best for you too

Which gets interpreted as I wish nothing but the best for you two.

Which admittedly is more pathetic than the original but it means something very different. This is a direct one-to-one song She is not wishing the best for the third party. Her well-wishing is limited to the person who broke it off, not extended the interloper taking her place. There is a BIG difference and one that I would protect even though the translation opens up so many luscious opportunities to be doubly pathetic and wonderfully graphic. I would have to reject those opportunities for the sake of fidelity. So "C" for them for making opportunities that I reject.

I would give them a "D" for doing that but they all do get "show up uninvited" correct and by the book and precisely all the same each time among them all, so there's that. Apparently a sign so perfect it cannot be improved or altered for song.; 2/13/12, 3:42 PM
Bryan Townsend said...: There is nothing at all wrong with Adele, she does a great job. But that article in the Wall Street Journal you linked to was ridiculous. Why are scientists out busily doing 'research' on the basic materials of music that are taught in any beginning harmony class? They get paid for this? I got so enraged I put up a post on it:

http://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2012/02/researchers-have-found.html; 2/13/12, 5:00 PM
rhhardin said...: John and Ken report 21 entries for Whitney Houston in the 2012 ghoul pool, an unusually high number.

Armstrong and Getty say Adele has enough buoyancy so that bathtub danger isn't great.; 2/13/12, 6:57 PM
rhhardin said...: Faure, Janet Baker; 2/13/12, 7:20 PM
jungatheart said...: I hadn't heard of Adele before today, but yes, tears can occur:

http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=S2SK4IkVD3w

Also, when in a low or pensive mood, songs such as Debussy's Clair de Lune or James Taylor's You Have a Friend will do the trick.

Thanks for the Faure, rh, beautiful.; 2/14/12, 12:51 AM