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| Artist of the Year: Coming to grips with Adele's '25' |
Evidently, for whatever reason, the world was ready for Adele.
To understand the reasons for that, one needs to first examine Adele’s career and what she brings to the table as an artist. A product of the British Soul explosion that came on the heels of Amy Winehouse’s 2006 masterpiece “Back to Black,” Adele’s 2008 album “19” was a solid debut, and her subsequent “21,” released in 2011, was a sales blockbuster that produced most of her biggest hits.
As a singer, Adele has two basic strengths in which she’s near-unparalleled among her generation: Power and soulfulness. In a lot of ways, she’s not as skilled a vocal technician as some of her contemporaries, and indeed, her phrasing, range and dexterity all pale before the late Winehouse’s. But what she has is a ring of emotional authenticity, particularly heartbreak. “21” captured the pure, operatic nature of young love lost, and songs such as “Rolling in the Deep” and “Rumour Has It” generated a visceral reaction in the listener.
Does “Hello” do this? Clearly, for a large amount of listeners, it does. But on review, it’s clear that there are some fundamental differences between “Hello” and its predecessors, not the least of which is the emotional distance between the singer and the song’s subject. This is not the fresh wounds of “Rolling in the Deep,” but rather an old sort of pain, a burn that still smolders years later. And perhaps, as Adele’s audience has aged, it is more open to that sort of more adult ache. “They say that time's supposed to heal ya,” sings Adele, “But I ain't done much healing.” Clearly.
But beyond the different perspective on what’s ostensibly the same event, there are technicalities that account for the difference in feel between the songs. “Rolling in the Deep,” produced by Paul Epworth, features a large number of musicians playing, and yet still manages to keep Adele’s vocals front and center. Conversely, the Greg Kurstin-produced “Hello” features himself playing most instruments (aside from drums, which Adele plays) and mixes her voice more evenly amid the instrumentation. The result is a flatter sound, even when she’s belting.
The overproduction hobbles the song, undercuts her sense of authenticity and smooths out the higher end of her vocal range. By way of comparison, if you listen to the cover by Postmodern Jukebox with vocals by Maiya Sykes, you can get an idea of just how powerful the song could be. While capturing the force of Adele’s version, Sykes’ voice is richer, and more textured. Moreover, while the melody adheres closely to the original version, the effect of marrying the vocals to live instrumentation lends a real power to the song, something that’s lacking in the original.
And yet, Adele’s version clearly touches people, despite its flaws. Perhaps it’s the low simmer in her voice on the song, or perhaps it’s as simple as audiences being hungry for a more-adult pop counter to the youthfulness of the likes of Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen. Maybe the same emotional impulses that lead them to “Rolling in the Deep” responded to “Hello’s” sense of pyrrhic resolution. Which begs the question: Is Adele retreading the same territory she covered on “21.” Well … sort of. While there’s a surface semantic similarity, it quickly becomes clear that “25” is coming from a very different emotional place, the first visible sign of which is that in “Hello,” the song’s persona takes responsibility for the relationship’s end, whereas most of “21” wallows in the righteousness that comes with being wronged. And really, that permission to wallow and rage was a big part of Adele’s original appeal.
“Hello from the other side,” sings Adele, but the question remains: The other side of what? Whereas it’s easy to accuse Adele of retreading material, it’s significant that “Hello” is the first song on “25,” giving way to the catchy (if still overproduced) “Send My Love (To Your New Lover),” with its theme of letting go, its imploration to the song’s subject to “treat her better,” and its underlying message: “We gotta let go of all of our ghosts/We both know we ain't kids no more.”
“25” is clearly a direct response to “21,” and it becomes evident quickly that the album is about the process of letting go, which is fundamentally different than the process of processing immediate pain. The theme refrains throughout the album, particularly striking on “When We Were Young,” where the persona finds herself breathless when she unexpectedly runs into her former lover. If anything, songs such as this illustrate a refinement in Adele’s ability to manipulate heartbreak. Her phrasing has developed more nuance, and she can now create levels of vocal smokiness, a far cry from the basic two settings she had on “21.”
In a lot of ways, “25” is frustrating because it’s a soul album produced like a dance album, and the plastic film that coats each song undercuts the natural beauty and resonance of Adele’s voice, and while there are definite up-tempo moments, the only place it really erupts into anything full-on danceable is “Water Under the Bridge.” The following song, “River Lea,” begins both the album’s closing sequence and a thematic pivot, examining youth and nostalgia. These are some of the most-sparely written songs on the album, and also some of the strongest. “Million Years Ago” has Adele singing over lightly played Latin and Middle Eastern sounds, and the effect is gorgeous, some of the most delicate and affecting singing in the artist’s songbook. “All I Ask” demonstrates an amazing degree of tenderness. “Let this be the way we remember us,” she sings, and not only has the distance between the persona and her lover grown over the course of two albums, it’s clear that the door is now entirely closed.
The album closes with a song about finding love, and whether you interpret the song as the persona moving on and finding someone new or as the song being written about Adele’s son, who would have been newborn when the song was written, it’s clear that something has changed, and that something new has been found.
Ultimately, as flawed as “25” is, it’s successful on any number of counts: It brings some resolution to the narrative begun in “21,” and it wipes the slate clean for Adele to explore new territory as a songwriter. It also shows her development as a singer, although the poor production obscures some of that. It’s a good album, if not a great one, and it shows that Adele is an artist with a great deal of promise beyond just commercial success. It’s hard to say that it deserves all the praise it’s been lavished with, but it’s also hard to naysay it. All told, it’s an album that hints that Adele’s best, most exciting work may well still be ahead of her. And that’s something worth celebrating.
Email Victor D. Infante at Victor.Infante@Telegram.com and follow him on Twitter @ocvictor.
Source http://www.telegram.com/article/20151231/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/151239945
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