Adele’s new CD still wins fans’ undying devotion
She could sing about anything and still earn undying devotion
There’s nothing quite as powerful — or memorable — as Adele’s soulful, soaring voice. With just a few notes, she can silence an entire pack of 20-something man-boys.
Exhibit A: Hello, her first single in three years. I only listened to it once before getting sidetracked by Justin Bieber’s Purpose and One Direction’s Made In The A.M. But even after repeated listens of both albums, guess which song I kept whistling over and over again?
You got it: Hello, a sweeping ballad that seems to harness the power of the four elements, thanks to one Adele’s most exquisite vocal performances. (Try not to tremble when her voice breaks as she sings: “Hello from the other side.”)
As it turns out, Hello might just be the best song on Adele’s third and latest pop album, 25, which sees the British powerhouse maintain her title as the reigning queen of sadness. A handful of other tunes come close — such as River Lea, a gospel-flavoured number about her roots. Or Million Years Ago, an aching acoustic ditty reminiscent of ’70s folk-pop.
“I wish I could live a little more/ Look up to the sky, not just the floor,” she laments. “I feel like my life is flashing by/And all I can do is watch and cry.”
As superlative as 25’s vocals and arrangements are, Adele sounds like she’s playing it safe — if only because the album feels out of step with where the 27-year-old is in her life and who she is becoming as a person.
Four years after the release of her record- (and heart-) shattering album, 21, she’s now living with her boyfriend, Simon Konecki, and their son, Angelo. She’s one of the world’s biggest pop stars. And despite the stress and loneliness that comes with her job, she still seems like such a crackerjack, who likes to laugh and make others do the same.
Yet none of that attitude is reflected in any of the material on 25, which features co-writes by musicians such as Bruno Mars (All I Ask), Danger Mouse (River Lea), and Vancouver’s Tobias Jesso, Jr. (When We Were Young). Even her happier songs feel bittersweet — including Remedy, a piano lullaby about the healing power of love, and Water Under the Bridge, a light soul-disco number inspired by her boyfriend. “If you’re going to let me down, let me down gently,” she instructs.
That’s my only quibble with this album. Adele’s reflections on life and love might be poignant and powerful, but I wish she’d let her sassy self shine through, too. She offers a brief glimpse of it on Water Under the Bridge — “If I’m not the one for you/You’ve got to stop holding me the way you do” — and the last track, Sweetest Devotion. “I’m heading straight for you/You will only be / Eternally/The only one I belong to,” she sings almost like she’s skipping through a field of flowers, hearts and unicorns.
Then again, with a voice like Adele’s, she could sing about anything and still earn our undying devotion.
Hello, it’s Adele, and she’s going to give the music industry a much-needed boost this year with 25.
The singer’s hotly anticipated album, released Friday, is projected to sell more than a million units in its debut week, helping the ailing record business in the final quarter of the year.
“So far, the fourth-quarter numbers have been pretty tough,” said David Bakula, Nielsen Entertainment’s senior vice-president of industry insights.
Bakula said Taylor Swift’s 1989, which was released last October and sold more than three million albums in roughly two months last year, helped 2014 close on a strong note.
“We’re down about 20 per cent year-over-year because we are going up against that Taylor Swift record with nothing at this point,” he said. “But once the Adele record comes out, I don’t think there’s anybody that doubts that this thing can sell very comparably, if not a little better on a week-over-week basis than Taylor Swift did last year.”
Some insiders are predicting 25 will sell 1.5 million units in its first week. And the album will easily become the top-selling release of 2015 (so far that title goes to 1989, which has sold 1.7 million units this year, and overall has moved 5.4 million albums).
25 is the followup to 2011’s 21, which has sold 11.23 million albums in the United States. With no sales figures available yet for Adele’s new album, 21 and the singer’s 2008’s debut, 19, were No. 24 and 66 on Billboard’s 200 albums chart, respectively.
In just three weeks, the single Hello has sold 2.2 million tracks.
“Her manager played me a couple songs and it’s very exciting to hear something of that quality doing that well.
And at the same time, it’s concerning that there aren’t many more things of that quality,” Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine said.
“She came in and did something pure, simple and just plain ol’ great, and that works. There’s a lot of great artists in the world right now, but she set the bar as far as quality and commerciality.”