All the scuttlebutt about Adele has been the chart success, BUT HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THE MUSIC?<\/p>\n
For too many years we’ve been inundated with look at me artists.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m better than you.\u00c2\u00a0 Watch me dance, see my big tits, come join the party.<\/p>\n
You don’t want to party with Adele.\u00c2\u00a0 THERE IS NO PARTY!<\/p>\n
Hip-hoppers sing of kicking women to the curb.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a record made by someone who WAS kicked to the curb.\u00c2\u00a0 How does that feel?<\/p>\n
You know.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you’re not a famous rapper, you’re not a famous starlet.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re inundated with them, from Paris Hilton to Kim Kardashian.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s fun to watch the movie, but it’s soulless.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can never say that about "21".<\/p>\n
"21" is a peek into Adele’s world.\u00c2\u00a0 Her inner life.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like we walked by a house and heard someone crying, got closer, and put our nose to the window.\u00c2\u00a0 And inside, saw someone who was where we’ve once been.\u00c2\u00a0 The land of heartbreak.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the human condition.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where some hook up with someone random just to stay in the game and others get old and refuse to play anymore.<\/p>\n
It’s not about automobiles.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about being rich.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about being human.<\/p>\n
There’s a distance between "21" and the listener, and that’s why we’re so infatuated.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why there’s no stage set-up required.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why it’s not about festivals and arenas.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s not about being part of a mass audience, it’s not about the party, it’s not about dancing, it’s about connecting with the artist, doing a mind-meld.<\/p>\n
Not that Adele is better than the artists of yore.\u00c2\u00a0 But she’s part of a long continuum.\u00c2\u00a0 Which has been whittled down to a thread.\u00c2\u00a0 But when we hear something real, we connect.<\/p>\n
That’s what’s amazing about "21".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about the music.\u00c2\u00a0 Not about the videos.\u00c2\u00a0 Not about the fame.\u00c2\u00a0 Only the music.<\/p>\n
Sure, now that she’s successful she’s pulling back on the hype.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s the way it’s always been done.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the Who did a commercial.\u00c2\u00a0 Before "Tommy", before credibility.\u00c2\u00a0 You do anything and everything to get traction, then you pull back.<\/p>\n
But people want to tear Adele down.\u00c2\u00a0 Talk about her statements re paying taxes.\u00c2\u00a0 As if music is about stardom, as if artists are paragons who’ve got it all figured out and never say anything wrong or stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 But they do.\u00c2\u00a0 As did John Lennon.\u00c2\u00a0 The best are honest and open, instead of hiding behind makeup and getting cut to appeal to an ideal that doesn’t really exist. Tell me the men who like the inflated lips of the trout pout set.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an endless race to the bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 One in which money trumps art and everybody’s looking to get rich quick and won’t take a risk.\u00c2\u00a0 Where marketing is more important than music. Where set-up is king.<\/p>\n
Sure, XL and Sony helped make Adele a success.<\/p>\n
But the reason she’s become a juggernaut is the music. <\/p>\n
The tracks don’t sound exactly alike.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t have the required beats.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s not playing by the rules.<\/p>\n
And that’s why we like her so much.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like she’s taken the TMZ\/Perez scene and flushed it down the toilet and walked away.<\/p>\n
You’ve got to listen to the tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s not a clinker on the record.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s one of the few albums you want to play from beginning to end, over and over again.<\/p>\n
And you’ve got no doubt she can sing.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not studio trickery.\u00c2\u00a0 It hearkens back to what once was much more than it looks into the future, yet it’s not retro, it’s just right.<\/p>\n
You know the single, "Rolling In The Deep", but the next track is "Rumor Has It".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got a tribal beat that Paul Simon wishes he could lock on to: HISTORY!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s one of the hardest parts of breaking up.\u00c2\u00a0 You split up the friends, the photos, you’re cleaved in half and forced to start all over.\u00c2\u00a0 Romance is a bad "Groundhog Day".<\/p>\n The third track, "Turning Tables", is the piece de resistance.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the song that Rufus Wainwright is dying to write.\u00c2\u00a0 With all the drama, all the emotion of the tail end of a relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an epic, with strings, a mini-opera, with the classic line:<\/p>\n I won’t let you close enough to hurt me<\/span><\/p>\n Who hasn’t been there?\u00c2\u00a0 You get too close and you get burned.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d like to return, but you’ve been singed and you just can’t do it again.<\/p>\n "Don’t You Remember".\u00c2\u00a0 A quintessential album cut.\u00c2\u00a0 Starting so quietly, it’ll never be played on Top Forty radio.\u00c2\u00a0 The first line says it all:<\/p>\n When will I see you again?<\/span><\/p>\n The one left behind.\u00c2\u00a0 He or she is not done yet.\u00c2\u00a0 They believe if they see you they can convince you to stay, or at least hearing it in the flesh accept the truth and begin to heal.\u00c2\u00a0 But who hasn’t dealt with a wimp who can’t even tell you you’re done to your face?<\/p>\n "Set Fire To The Rain" has a jauntiness akin to the lyrics.\u00c2\u00a0 The recovery process has begun.\u00c2\u00a0 The anger has been embraced and is now being evidenced.<\/p>\n What’s enrapturing about "He Won’t Go" is the sound.\u00c2\u00a0 The twinkling, jazzy piano, like a rainy street after a night in the club. And the killer line:<\/p>\n If this ain’t love, what is?<\/span><\/p>\n I climbed this mountain and I’m not at the peak?<\/p>\n And "I’ll Be Waiting" has an upbeat feel, no one can accuse Adele of making a completely downbeat album.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like when you start to recover from the end of relationship, you have good moments, they counter the bad.<\/p>\n "One And Only" is what the "American Idol" contestants strive for, but can’t achieve.\u00c2\u00a0 With them, it’s solely about the vocal gymnastics.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re only half, the other half is the story, the song, when Adele sings you have no doubt it’s her, her story.\u00c2\u00a0 And she stays shy of Mariah Carey\/Christina Aguilera histrionics.\u00c2\u00a0 Because just because you can do it, that does not mean you should.<\/p>\n And the closer, "Someone Like You", is the summation.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s done, it’s over, she’s recovered, to the degree anybody really can, he’s got someone else, she accepts it, if she still doesn’t like it.<\/p>\n The killer couplet:<\/p>\n I had hoped you’d see my face<\/span> WHEW!<\/p>\n I’m truly shocked.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d about given up.\u00c2\u00a0 People play me what they’re into and I brush it aside, it’s subpar, it’s music, but it’s not life itself.<\/p>\n But then I hear "21" and I get that tingle, my inner flame starts to flicker, my faith in music is suddenly rekindled.\u00c2\u00a0 That the art form can be more honest and more pleasing than any other.<\/p>\n You know what hooked you once?<\/p>\n "21" has got that.<\/p>\n And the public has responded.\u00c2\u00a0 In a record breaking way.<\/p>\n This is not anomalous.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the way out.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the beacon.\u00c2\u00a0 Very few can do it, but enough can to sustain us.<\/p>\n Music happens in the mind.\u00c2\u00a0 It goes in the ears and percolates in the brain.\u00c2\u00a0 When done right, you close your eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 Why has everybody been imploring us to keep our eyes open for so long?<\/p>\n I don’t care if you like punk or jazz or emo or hip-hop, you should listen to "21".\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s open.\u00c2\u00a0 And honest.<\/p>\n Like you.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All the scuttlebutt about Adele has been the chart success, BUT HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THE MUSIC? For too many years we’ve been inundated with look at me artists.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m better than you.\u00c2\u00a0 Watch me dance, see my big tits, come join the party. You don’t want to party with Adele.\u00c2\u00a0 THERE IS NO PARTY! 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She, she ain’t real<\/span>
She ain’t gonna be able to love you like I will<\/span>
She is a stranger<\/span>
You and I have history<\/span><\/p>\n
And that you’d be reminded that for me it isn’t over<\/span><\/p>\n