The Adele 21 Review

I am completely and totally in love with Adele — in the most honorable and humanistic way — and it is my delight to review her latest 21 album.  Yes, Adele is a SuperGenius SuperStar from the UK and, yes, she is only 22 years old.  Her voice is a throaty, smoky, raspy mix of the Bluesy heartache made famous by Fiona Apple, Rihanna and Janis Joplin.

The best way to explain why Adele is so great is to listen with your eyes.  Here she is in performance singing the haunting Don’t You Remember from 21:

I love her passion and glorious voice.  Adele writes most of her own music.

Rolling in the Deep is another instant Adele classic from 21:

Turning Tables, also from 21, has a wonderful, melodic, lick that sticks in your ear and punches you in the gut:

What amazes me most about Adele’s young career isn’t her spectacular promise or her immediate, earthy, resonance — it is the vapid reaction of some of the mainstream public who choose to vote on her talent based on her weight and not the vowel in the vessel.

Does it matter what Adele weighs?  Why should we be concerned with how she looks and how she behaves at the dinner table or during a late night snack?  As long as she isn’t breaking the law, and as long as she is of sound mind — then we need only to take her on the merits of her life, as is, without any condescending repercussion against her physical appearance.  Who knows?  Maybe the real magic of Adele is in a certain body chemistry that currently fuels that incredible voice that will ring out for centuries.

Here’s the iTunes Ping! proof of my 21 purchase — so you know I put my own money where my review stands:

One of my most favorite Adele performances comes from her first 19 album where she covered Bob Dylan‘s beautiful lamentation, Make You Feel My Love.

I’m going to show you two Adele performances of Make You Feel My Love.

The first is the “official video” for Make You Feel My Love produced by Adele and her team when 19 was originally released.  Her singing is grand, but none of her personality shines through, she looks as if she’s taken a beating around the eyes, and the dreary, drab, landscape of the video doesn’t help promote her as a righteous SuperStar singer:

Great live recorded performance, right, but lousy — and absolutely unhelpful — production execution of the idea.

Here’s a more recent, and truly live Adele performance, of the same song.  In this version of Make You Feel My Love, Adele is effervescent, alive, and you get a specific taste of her wacky sense of humor and thrilling personality as she introduces the song:

There you have it.

Now you know why Adele is a mighty talent for aeons.