Music Review: Adele - 19

Soniferous vocals and a soul divine
But overall this one is not worth your time

ADELE - 19

**1/2 (out of 5)

Genre: Soul, Pop
Year released: 2008
Worth the time: Nope



So, I came across this album fairly randomly, I think I was just clicking around the internet, Googling random stuff and this popped up. I think the context of the webpage was "Adele is the new Amy Winehouse." So I thought, hey, that's interesting, she doesn't look drunk, why don't I try this out? And so I youtube'd her, and found the video for the single off the album, Chasing Pavements, and it was really good. The concept for the video is pretty cool (it's definitely worth watching), and the song was pretty good too. Catchy in an easy listening sort of way, and the girl has a powerhouse of a voice.

So I had fairly high hopes for the album, and unfortunately, was left sorely disappointed. Yeah, I guess I can see why people are drawing the comparisons to Amy Winehouse, although it's really only because the two of them are British, you can hear the accents when they're singing, and because they've both got a jazz-inspired soul-pop thing going on. But that's just about where the comparison ends, because 19 is an album sporting a great vocal talent on tracks that are, for the most part, really boring. The lyrics are pretty inane where Winehouse's are always smart and quippy; the scatting is sparse and set to weird points in the lyrics (on My Same: "But we do do do do do do..." brings up fecal images); and the instrumentation is safe and completely ordinary. No breakthroughs here.

So while Chasing Pavements is surely worth taking the time to listen and watch, the rest of the album was a bit of a waste of time, and I'm not sure who's calling this album wonderful anyways, but I'm guessing they're either deaf or also boring.

Tracks that please: Chasing Pavements