popwreckoning

In the Noughties, the British music scene was littered with female blue eyed soul singers; the ones that stood out in front were bad girl Amy Winehouse, doe-eyed lass Duffy, groovy Joss Stone, and the wild card, Adele, who managed a breakout hit here in the U.S. with “Chasing Pavements.” The London soul singer is back in 2011 with her second album. Like 19, her debut album released in 2008, this one is named 21, for the age she wrote these songs. Kind of unimaginative. Well, this is a woman who writes mostly ballads…and this album went straight to #1 on its first week of release in the UK in mid-January, and when it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I feel it necessary to start this review by saying Adele has a great voice. She really does. The problem I have with 21 is that all the songs are too similar. There are essentially two types of sound on here: there are delicate acoustic tunes, and there are over the top, over-orchestrated ones with backing soul singers. Then there’s only so many times you can hear a woman singing the sentiment, “what did I do wrong? I’ll change, if you [come back / stay with me].” See “Don’t You Remember,” “I’ll Be Waiting,” “One and Only,” and “He Won’t Go.” It’s not that I’m a cold, heartless stone. I’ve loved and lost, I can relate to the feelings, generally. I’m no feminist, but I chafe at hearing another woman singing how she’s going to give up everything for her man to get him.

Then there’s the opposite emotion, which I think comes across as more real. “Rolling in the Deep” was chosen as the lead single. And with good reason. The tempo is upbeat (thudding drums and banging piano chords), and when it comes to emotion, there’s nothing like a woman scorned. When she sings, “we could have had at it all / rolling in the deep / you had my heart and soul / in your hands / but you played it / to the beat” and “you’re gonna wish you / had never met me,” you feel it. Maybe it’s no “You Oughta Know,” but it’s close. “Rumour Has It” is cut from the same cloth, but the shouted “rumour has it!” over and over gets annoying after a while.

The strength of Adele‘s voice comes across winningly in “Someone Like You”; this is the one song on here I can overlook the cloyingness. Also included on this album is an inspired cover of the Cure‘s “Lovesong.” This could have gone terribly wrong, but Adele gives the ’80s classic proper reverence with a bossa nova interpretation that Robert Smith should be applauding. Like sappy ballads? This one’s for you.

21 by Adele will be released on XL Recordings on February 22. She will be touring North America in support of this album on the dates below.

Track Listing:
01. Rolling in the Deep
02. Rumour Has It
03. Turning Tables
04. Don’t You Remember
05. Set the Fire to Rain
06. He Won’t Go
07. Take It All
08. I’ll Be Waiting
09. One and Only
10. Lovesong
11. Someone Like You

Tour Dates:
May 12 – 9:30 Club / Washington, DC
May 13 – Electric Factory / Philadelphia
May 15 – House of Blues / Boston
May 16 – Olympia Theater / Montreal
May 18 – Kool Haus / Toronto
May 19 – Beacon Theatre / New York City
May 23 – Royal Oak Music Theatre / Royal Oak
May 24 – Riviera Theater / Chicago
May 26 – First Avenue / Minneapolis
May 28 – Ogden Theatre / Denver
May 29 – Depot / Salt Lake City
May 31 – Commodore Ballroom / Vancouver, BC
June 01 – Showbox at the Market / Seattle
June 03 – Crystal Ballroom / Portland
June 04 – Warfield Theatre / San Francisco
June 08 – Humphreys Concerts by the Bay / San Diego
June 09 – Wiltern / Los Angeles
June 12 – Stubbs Waller Creek / Austin
June 15 – House of Blues / Dallas
June 17 – Tabernacle / Atlanta
June 18 – Orange Peel / Asheville
June 20 – Ryman Auditorium / Nashville

Adele: website | myspace | Adele Announces May and June North American Tour, Album Stream Available on NPR

Listening to Duffy it is fairly easy to notice that she has talent. Her voice tends to be strong and in tune, belted out and rising above the string composition and nineteen-something throwback numbers slammed onto her album. Talent isn’t the question. I honestly have little doubt that Duffy would own American Idol (heck, she owned the Welsh version Wawffactor). She can be marketed. The 6.5 million copies of her debut record Rockferry sold prove that without a doubt. However, regardless of her success, her talent and her marketability, she still seems to be standing there without a defined image. Listening to her albums, she comes off as little more than a sassy karaoke singer. She never manages to capture the larger than life spotlight that the Gagas, X-tinas and  Winehouses of her genre need.

Endlessly, Duffy’s sophomore album seems to reinforce this. The retro-styled R&B has its moments of momentum, but mostly fails to gather enough thrust to be deemed interesting. Sure,  the album’s obvious single, “Well, Well, Well,” will probably manage to draw people to snag the album from the store shelves with a propaganda attack on MTV and radio, but as a whole, Duffy’s product falls short of album of the year material. To be quite honest, it doesn’t even rate on my chart as the best album released this week. With 6 fairly ignorable tracks on a 10 track album, it is hard to approve of this album not being trimmed down to an EP.

However, not all is lost on the album. The production of Endlessly, which was done by Albert Hammond is top  notch. The strings are crisp, the vocals are bold and the rhythm section, made up of members of The Roots, is driving. Tech nerds night want to give the album at least one listen for these instances alone. Everyone else might consider downloading “What, What What” and “My Boy” from iTunes.

2 out of 5 stars