Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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52 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Amy Winehouse comparisons are as misleading as they are predictable., August 12, 2008
There's no disputing the gifts of Tottenham-born Adele Adkins, the latest BRIT graduate to stroll into the charts. As we know from her single Chasing Pavements, she has a sensational voice: rich, robust, voluptuously bluesy.
Is she the new Amy Winehouse?
It is not quite right.
True, both are white girls who owe a debt to black soul, both sing with a London twang ("I don't get nuffin' back," rasps Adele on the punchy "Tired"), and both are in pieces because their man done them wrong.
Eleven of the 12 songs on Adele's debut are about heartbreak (the other, "Hometown Glory", is about how cool London is).
Adele, though, is easier to listen to than Winehouse. Her music is cleaner, less menacing: there's the bright acoustic-guitar chime of "Daydreamer", the lullaby twinkle of "First Love", the plush strings of "Melt My Heart to Stone".
Her mesmerising singing tone, honest lyrics, jazz and soul influences, and brash Cockney speaking accent, echo Amy. But Adele's delivery is far more delicate.
Lyrically she's simpler, too, occasionally even soppy: "When there's no one there to dry your tears, I could hold you for a million years," she gushes on "Make You Feel My Love".
Where Back to Black sounded emotionally and musically true, almost everything on the covers-all-bases "19" sounds like it was absorbed by osmosis at the London's BRIT School for Performing Arts (where she, Katie Melua, Leona Lewis, Kate Nash and Winehouse are alumni).
Some will find Adele rigidly old-fashioned. Her influences (Etta James, Dusty Springfield, Billie Holiday) are from another age.
A cursory listen may lead you to conclude that Adele has a voice way in excess of her years. In terms of technical ability, that's true.
The instrumentation seems designed to usher you to that conclusion: a dash of jazz bass, the odd string arrangement that seems to take its cue from Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy".
"Sumptuous one moment then fragile the next, this is an album dripping with beauty and class.
Adele's voice caresses and inspires, and is superbly supplemented by piano, guitar and glorious orchestration".(Lee Davis)
All that we can say is that she sings with unabashed passion about a kind of pain we can all recognise, and that sort of thing doesn't date.
Made of Bricks
Piece by Piece
Spirit
Always
Rockferry
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adele Is Even Better In Person, November 6, 2008
I first saw Adele when she made her appearance on Saturday Night LIve and I, literally, stopped ehat I was doing and listened to her voice with my mouth agape. Her vocal style is absolutely flawless...and she was actually singing (not lip synching). The next day, I bought the album 19 and was, once again, floored with the amazing tone of her voice and how all of her songs would simultaneously get stuck in my head. I found a few live performances including a Live Video she shot for "Melt My Heart To Stone" and she was even BETTER live than on her album.
She may get compared to Amy Winehouse, but Adele has such class and control of her voice, and her songs filled with such passion and feeling, that I think that soon, Amy Winehouse will get compared to Adele...and Adele will blow her out of the water!
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Angelic, April 25, 2008
Adele's voice is fantastic and emotive. She blends British acoustic with blues and soul like Lauryn Hill(unplugged) meets Tracy Thorn and Etta James.
This is the only album I have listened to for the past month. My favorites are (soulful) Melt My Heart to Stone, (folk/country) Crazy for You, (blues vocal) First Love and (motown-ish) Right as Rain.
Her style is NOT the Amy Winehouse raspy attitude type of voice. Adele's niche is with her guitar and her voice.
I can't get enough.
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