Someone like you

Deep and powerful is the first word she sings into the microphone. Dressed in a black dress and with a stern look on her face she is standing on stage of the O2 Arena in Greenwich quietening the audience with her voice. The piano player in the black suite swings to the soft melody. The performance is simple but elegant. In the end of the song tears run down her face.

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins is still showing emotions when she sings her song “Someone like you” over and over again. Adele tells the story of a heart broken woman who wishes “nothing but the best” to her ex-boyfriend and his new life. When the British singer tunes in the verse “sometimes it ends in love but sometimes it hurts instead,” she reaches out to the people’s hearts. All of those experiences are easy to identify with because she is referring to issues in everyone’s real life. The lyrics are structured in simplicity and played so often that the memorization of them unavoidable. The music in her second album “21” turned from jazzy beats into catchy pop. Though, her voice kept the heavy soul what makes her sound much older than only 22.

Photo: sound.to

Most of the time, she wears black. Pictures show her bulgy hair which is neatly tied back to a big bun. Even her makeup seems to be the same all along. The black eye liner that emphases her big eyes and the rouge that stresses her cheekbones are a set part of her occurrence. Adele isn’t one of the dainty pop stars. Her figure is curvy and the features of her face are very smooth. Her style, self-created or adopted to her, is elegant and mature. 

The way Adele is behaving in interviews is the complete contrast to her deliberate and severe music. While talking to Jonathan Ross on ITV her strong Tottenham accent becomes obvious and her humorous nature, too. Similar to her singing voice her laugh is tremendous and the audience giggles with her. Adele makes jokes on behave of the presenter’s age, her ex-boyfriend and also doesn’t take herself too seriously. Even though, her lyrics are quite sad and sorrowful the singer seems to be a joyful person who just gets on with the ups and downs of life.

According to her main focus on relationships that didn’t work out and the feelings that remained from that time, Adele is frequently questioned about her own relationships. Too quieten the ongoing rumours about her current boyfriend Simon Konecki she posted on her blog lately:

 “This is the first and last time I will comment on the details of my relationship with Simon. Contrary to reports and headlines in the press today, Simon is divorced and has been for 4 years. Everyone in our lives separately and together wish us nothing but the best, and vice versa. These are the facts. Take care and see you all in February xx.”

Fed up with the media reporting Adele stated: “I don’t really look at the internet anymore. There is way too much bad staff.” 

There have already been drinking issues in Adele’s short career. After her first album “19” was flourishing and she got the Urban Music Award for “Best Jazz Act”, she cancelled her 2008 tour “An Evening with Adele”. The reason for that was her wish to spend more time with her present boyfriend.

"I was drinking far too much and that was kind of the basis of my relationship with this boy. I couldn't bear to be without him, so I was like, 'Well, OK, I'll just cancel my stuff then… I can't believe I did that… It seems so ungrateful," she said looking back.  

Adele started a drunken diary that she reads through when she is sober again to sort out her feelings and keep those thoughts for song writing. “I am not very good at talking. To myself obviously, but not to a lot of people. When I’m in a shit time in my relationships I am never really saying how I feel and talking about it even if they are trying to bring it out of me,” she said and added that she hates to be single.

At the age of four Adele began to sing and refers to the Spice girls as her great inspiration: “they made me what I am today.” She wrote her first chart song “Hometown Glory” when she was only 16. Right after her graduation from the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology Adele published two songs on the online arts publication PlatformsMagazine. Later, a friend of Adele uploaded her songs on MySpace what caught the attention of the music label XL Recordings in 2006.

Her second album “21” was classified as roots and country music. Adele commented that the tour through America made her change the style of her music. The single "Someone Like You" was sold over a million times in the UK. Adele won the BBC Sound of 2008 and got the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2009. In 2010 the German singer Lena Meyer-Landrut covered Adele’s song “My Same” in an alike British accent and blues rhythm. Adele took part in X-Factor and finally made her career with Bob Dylan’s song “Make you Feel My Love”.

Adele is famous for her remarkable voice and there is no need to cite more numbers to proof her success in the pop business. Nevertheless, she says that she doesn’t care about her popularity. “I am pretty oblivious to everything. I’m not very in tough with the fame side of it. I am not chasing it and to be honest it doesn’t interest me a lot.”

In December 2011 she announced that she is going to take a break before producing her third album. This announcement followed previous health problems with her throat and voice in October. 

When Adele’s recognition launched to grow she was often compared with Amy Winehouse and other female soul singers on what she commented “we're a gender, not a genre”. Those critics seem to be ceased when her second album was released.

The influence of her music is immense. People overwhelm her with declarations of love on her homepage like this woman from Colombia who wrote:

“you are my example of life and you help me a lot! give me streng in the most hard moments. thanks for be like you are. you are my hope and my favorite person in the world.
thank you.”

The music business depends on artists it can push to the top of the charts. It could be an overweening sentimentality that is made up to hit a female love frustration. The strength of her voice and the harmony in her music is definitely her advantage. Still, how honest her expressed feelings are can hardly be measured. Maybe that is not even important as long as she has the ability to tough crowds with her lyrics. The look at top 10 hits like Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” where the first line goes: “I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long at its free...”, isn’t really the better alternative.