# The Strange Magic of: Adele



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Weeping Divas, Part Two. Country and Western--when one thinks of C&W, the singers and the songs, what culture, what background immediately springs to mind? The Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina? Blue Ridge? Great Smokies? Kentucky; the Ozarks maybe. The West? The South? No, one thinks immediately of England (where it all started anyway). And one thinks of Adele, who is really one of the major Country and Western stars of our time. Forget Nashville: Adele can fill the Albert Hall with her adoring fans. No hat or spurs, but she really is very good, open, direct. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. _Someone Like You_.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

I love Adele. She's like a beautiful songbird. This song had me in tears...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Good old Morimur! You rise like a fish to the bait.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> Good old Morimur! You rise like a fish to the bait.


Well, Magic, if you weren't moved by Adele's performance I can only assume that you posses a stone cold heart! Good day, Sir!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Filling halls has more to do with promotion than anything else. I don't know about the C & W thing? Adele, Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone are all under the spell of African American musical divas. And it all sounds a bit too affected for my taste.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Marianne Faithful - now there's a good pop singer. With her ravaged vocal cords she sounds like the possessed Linda Blair in the Exorcist. Not a conventionally beautiful voice, but it's full of personality and nuance; its raw and honest.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

starthrower said:


> Filling halls has more to do with promotion than anything else.


Actually, the listless, stony-faced, sullen audience had to be paid to fill the hall to overflowing--simple promotion wasn't enough in itself. Adele herself spent weeks being drilled in how to feign tears convincingly 

Seriously though, I continue to marvel at the sophistication, the exquisiteness of taste, of some of the critics of this sort of artist and performance. I lack that nicety, that fineness of judgment (and am secretly glad). I think I'll have a good cry, and a beer.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Morimur said:


> Marianne Faithful - now there's a good pop singer. With her ravaged vocal cords she sounds like the possessed Linda Blair in the Exorcist. Not a conventionally beautiful voice, but it's full of personality and nuance; its raw and honest.


I see you think Marianne shares with Adele in not having a conventionally beautiful voice, but one full of personality and nuance (well, maybe not nuance in your example here), and is raw and honest. You will start a Marianne Faithfull thread, yes?


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> I see you think Marianne shares with Adele in not having a conventionally beautiful voice, but one full of personality and nuance (well, maybe not nuance in your example here), and is raw and honest. You will start a Marianne Faithfull thread, yes?


A Marianne Faithful thread? No. Nobody cares. Now, a Barbara Streisand thread-_that_ might garner some interest...but I can't stand her music.

Sinead O' Connor is probably in possession of the most beautiful voice in pop music. It's too bad she never really fulfilled her potential-she only cut two good albums...well, maybe three.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Reminds me of a faux-fur version of the late great Laura Nyro but with far fewer songwriting smarts.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> Reminds me of a faux-fur version of the late great Laura Nyro but with far fewer songwriting smarts.


Oh, Please! That is a stretch, even for this thread. Laura Nyro and Adele occupy different universes. Why does not Adele remind you of Ella Fitzgerald, or Maria Callas?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> Oh, Please! That is a stretch, even for this thread. Laura Nyro and Adele occupy different universes. Why does not Adele remind you of Ella Fitzgerald, or Maria Callas?


Perhaps because I can't ever remember Ella Fitzgerald or Maria Callas being regarded as singer-songwriters in the same way as Adele is. I've heard _19_ which strikes me as being a 'blue-eyed soul'-influenced record, so I think my comparison to Laura Nyro was a fair one. How she's moved on since then is of no real interest to me, to be honest - it seems that since her debut album Adele is far more reliant on others for co-writing her material in order to broaden her palette whereas Laura Nyro didn't need help from anyone.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> Laura Nyro didn't need help from anyone.


While I regard your choosing to compare Adele with Laura Nyro to be analogous to comparing a sturdy Ford Focus to an Arnolt Bristol Bolide, I am happy we share a strong appreciation for Ms. Nyro


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> Oh, Please! That is a stretch, even for this thread. Laura Nyro and Adele occupy different universes.


True! When Laura Nyro sings, I can feel it right down to my bones. Ideally, Adele should do the same for me, but she doesn't. In spite of the fact that she posesses a gritty soulful sound, it comes across as nothing more than a performance. At least that's the way I feel it. Maybe it's a generational thing? I also appreciate a vocalist that can sit down at the piano, or pick up a guitar and play as well as they sing. So give me Joni, Laura, or Aretha. Or Stevie Wonder.

As for female vocalists across the pond, I like Maura O'Connell, and Mary Black. But they're not young pop divas.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

starthrower said:


> True! When Laura Nyro sings, I can feel it right down to my bones. Ideally, Adele should do the same for me, but she doesn't. In spite of the fact that she posesses a gritty soulful sound, it comes across as nothing more than a performance. At least that's the way I feel it. Maybe it's a generational thing? I also appreciate a vocalist that can sit down at the piano, or pick up a guitar and play as well as they sing. So give me Joni, Laura, or Aretha. Or Stevie Wonder.
> 
> As for female vocalists across the pond, I like Maura O'Connell, and Mary Black. But they're not young pop divas.


I don't think it's a generational thing - I am 36 and if I hear an Adele song, I might as well be listening to white noise. Wonder if it's a result of excessive auto-tuning? Infernal machines.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Morimur said:


> I don't think it's a generational thing - I am 36 and if I hear an Adele song, I might as well be listening to white noise.


You're right; I don't think it's a generational thing either--I think it's more a question of one's bandwidth. How broad one's tastes are. The People cry for Cake? Let them eat Bread! It sometimes better satisfies the appetite, mine anyway.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> You're right; I don't think it's a generational thing either--I think it's more a question of one's bandwidth. *How broad one's tastes are.* The People cry for Cake? Let them eat Bread! It sometimes better satisfies the appetite, mine anyway.


I can't recall whether I've made this point before, but Morimur (for all his irascibility), has pretty broad tastes that include a lot of Modern Classical and offbeat non-Classical. He just doesn't like "mainstream" pop and isn't afraid to tell you.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> I can't recall whether I've made this point before, but Morimur (for all his irascibility), has pretty broad tastes that include a lot of Modern Classical and offbeat non-Classical. He just doesn't like "mainstream" pop and isn't afraid to tell you.


Now I find this out!


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

^^^^
I'd have guessed you my age, my son.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now. Robert Zimmerman.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Not a big fan, but for reasons to do with love, happiness and especially peace, I've given my children a say in the playlists on long cartrips and I now truly enjoy some of her songs. Same with Winehouse and some others. My son developed a true taste for Bach and Prokofiev. I guess open mindedness works both ways.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Another singer with a few pleasant songs for the car MP3 USB stick - but never had the inclination to check out the albums.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Art Rock said:


> Another singer with a few pleasant songs for the car MP3 USB stick - but never had the inclination to check out the albums.


"A few pleasant songs....." A modest goal, but a very worthy one. In music, I take my pleasures where I find them, and am grateful when I find them. I am constitutionally a cheerful soul, but the world teems with darkness, decay, and dashed hopes. Also, Murphy was right when he labeled 95% of everything as crap. I've compensated (not deliberately; just born that way) by being willing to be pleased perhaps with a lower threshold, a wider aperture, than those of more refined tastes. These SM live concert video clips please me, as I've indicated, for a spectrum of reasons: I like the artist; I like the song; I like the theatrics; I like the involvement, the rapport, with the audience; maybe the quirkiness or sheer fun of it (check out the L7 clip again!); I like live. But there are no goals beyond, no grand artistic statement is implied by these selections--I just enjoy these clips, and hope some others do also.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Strange Magic said:


> You're right; I don't think it's a generational thing either--I think it's more a question of one's bandwidth. How broad one's tastes are.


If one's tastes are too broad, then it could be argued that one doesn't have any taste.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

starthrower said:


> If one's tastes are too broad, then it could be argued that one doesn't have any taste.


It can also be argued that this is a statement that reeks of elitism.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> It can also be argued that this is a statement that reeks of elitism.


Are you implying that one is an elitist if a particular listner doesn't embrace everything? I don't know anyone that likes everything.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

starthrower said:


> If one's tastes are too broad, then it could be argued that one doesn't have any taste.


The question is: who decides? The answer?: *I decide!*


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## BaritoneAssoluto (Jun 6, 2016)

The more "mainstream" Adele became, the less musically involved and less creative she has become. Great singer, but the "musician" has long gone died in 2009.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> "A few pleasant songs....." A modest goal, but a very worthy one. In music, I take my pleasures where I find them, and am grateful when I find them. I am constitutionally a cheerful soul, but the world teems with darkness, decay, and dashed hopes. *Also, Murphy was right when he labeled 95% of everything as crap. *I've compensated (not deliberately; just born that way) by being willing to be pleased perhaps with a lower threshold, a wider aperture, than those of more refined tastes. These SM live concert video clips please me, as I've indicated, for a spectrum of reasons: I like the artist; I like the song; I like the theatrics; I like the involvement, the rapport, with the audience; maybe the quirkiness or sheer fun of it (check out the L7 clip again!); I like live. But there are no goals beyond, no grand artistic statement is implied by these selections--I just enjoy these clips, and hope some others do also.


Theodore Sturgeon, not Murphy.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

GreenMamba said:


> Theodore Sturgeon, not Murphy.


Mentioning Sturgeon made me think of his offbeat book _Some of Your Blood_. Not at all Sturgeon's usual fare, and certainly not for the squeamish or easily disturbed.

https://www.amazon.com/Some-Your-Bl...1467593191&sr=1-1&keywords=some+of+your+blood


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now. Robert Zimmerman.


Ha ha, I meant to reply to Morimur. I would never have guessed him being 36 and into Marianne Faithful. Quite unusual for someone not of my age.

By the way Adele is not bad at all, she has some nice songs, but I agree wth others Marianne Faithful has more personality and Joni is the Goddess.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Casebearer said:


> By the way Adele is not bad at all, she has some nice songs, but I agree wth others Marianne Faithful has more personality and Joni is the Goddess.


While it may be true that Marianne Faithfull (two ells, please) has more personality than Adele and that Joni is the Goddess, is that the point? These threads often follow the same progression: the clip, of A, is shown, constituting a world, a small world, unto itself. Then somebody posts that A is not B; B, who may or may not have any affinity with or congruence to A, is better than A. And C, also only tenuously and remotely like A--same gender, maybe, or also plays the piano--is better than either A or B. But then I reflect: this is TC, and we have threads on whether Haydn is better than Mozart, Mozart better than Beethoven, etc., etc. And I then relax, and watch another engaging YouTube clip.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

You're right.

Sorry about the 'l'. I'm Dutch, spelling English is somewhat more difficult for me than it is for you, especially after working 60 hours last weeks.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Casebearer said:


> You're right.
> 
> Sorry about the 'l'. I'm Dutch, spelling English is somewhat more difficult for me than it is for you, especially after working 60 hours last weeks.


Casebearer, your mistake--if we can call it that--in misspelling Faithfull's name, is wholly understandable, even reasonable. It's just a bizarre fact that her name is spelled as it is. I don't understand myself how anybody not born into an English-speaking and writing and reading environment makes any coherent sense out of the language at all--it was George Bernard Shaw who convincingly showed that one can spell the word _fish_ as ghoti, using the gh of cough, the o of women, and the ti of station. Eye wrest mai kais!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

starthrower said:


> Are you implying that one is an elitist if a particular listner doesn't embrace everything? I don't know anyone that likes everything.


Of course not. There's a world of difference between having "tastes that are too broad" and "embrace everything".


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## Rosie (Jul 4, 2016)

Adele is beautiful but I don't believe she's a great singer, she actually annoys me when she sings. Which confuses me became every other girl I've known says she's one of the best


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Rosie said:


> Adele is beautiful but I don't believe she's a great singer, she actually annoys me when she sings. Which confuses me became every other girl I've known says she's one of the best


The phenomenon is called The Infinite Variety of Taste, (patent pending).


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Casebearer said:


> You're right.
> 
> Sorry about the 'l'. I'm Dutch, spelling English is somewhat more difficult for me than it is for you, especially after working 60 hours last weeks.


60 hours? You must be living in the US.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Morimur said:


> 60 hours? You must be living in the US.


Ain't that the truth! It's no wonder people will pay big bucks to go to a pop concert to escape reality for a couple of hours.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

starthrower said:


> Ain't that the truth! It's no wonder people will pay big bucks to go to a pop concert to escape reality for a couple of hours.


It's the 'American Dream'.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I'm afraid I don't consider her any better than the average female pop star, except that she's a bit less trashy as she doesn't appear half naked shaking her booty in every videoclip (if she had the body for it she probably would).


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Morimur said:


> 60 hours? You must be living in the US.


Well no and I'm glad I'm not. We get our taste of the US enough as it is.

Also I'm happy to say that 60 hours is an exception I don't want to repeat. I was confronted with a deadline and two co-workers that have the nasty habit of being deadline oriented in their planning seem to think I should be glad to receive a contribution in the first place. Main trouble is I like them both a lot on the personal level. I've come to realize I'm a professional wimp.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Casebearer, your mistake--if we can call it that--in misspelling Faithfull's name, is wholly understandable, even reasonable. It's just a bizarre fact that her name is spelled as it is. I don't understand myself how anybody not born into an English-speaking and writing and reading environment makes any coherent sense out of the language at all--it was George Bernard Shaw who convincingly showed that one can spell the word _fish_ as ghoti, using the gh of cough, the o of women, and the ti of station. Eye wrest mai kais!


I first learned some English by having a friend that was from Malta (English speaking family) when I was 13 and after that I really learned some English by reading George Eliot's Middlemarch (Penguin Edition, some 900 pages) and looking up every word I didn't know when I was 16 or so. I don't remember anything of the story, all I remember is that the English language has an astonishingly rich vocabulary on fabrics, textile and clothing.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Morimur said:


> It's the 'American Dream'.


Where the hell do you get this stuff!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Rereading this Adele thread was delightful! I wish my old sparring partner Morimur were with us still--he was a hoot, as newcomers can see for themselves. But Adele served to raise yet again issues that have cropped up repeatedly with these SM selections, and rereading the criticisms of Adele and the sorts of performers like her has reconfirmed certain conclusions I hold regarding popular music as presented in these threads. I stand solidly and cheerfully behind my rebuttals and counter-arguments previously presented.






A recurring pattern is a widespread inability among this select TC audience to be be reached, touched, affected by simple, direct, straightforward presentations of simple, direct, straightforward songs by extremely popular artists in front of adoring, rapturous audiences. But as I've posted before, it all comes down to bandwidth, and to a willingness to be pleased by the things that please millions of others. Anyway, YouTube took away the previous wonderful video of a tearful Adele ((sporting false eyelashes that almost sweep the floor as she blinks) singing Someone Like You. But, to my delight, I found an exact replacement of her Albert Hall concert that brings it back, and also provides the bonus of Rolling in the Deep--a Twofer! Enjoy Popular Entertainment (if you can).


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