It’s been a while since we’ve seen someone like Adele, someone who transcends that humble descriptor “artist” and becomes something more like … a phenomenon.
Exactly one year ago today, this modest British singer with the jaw-dropping neo-soul voice released her sophomore album, 21. She’d had one reasonably solid hit from her debut effort (19) in 2008, “Chasing Pavements,” which peaked at No. 28 on the Hot 100. Still, I think it’s safe to say no one in the music industry saw this coming.
Quite simply, 21 has gone supernova in the last 12 months. This week marks the album’s 21st nonconsecutive week at No. 1. Buoyed by the strength of Adele’s six Grammy nods 10 days ago, 21 sold more than 700,000 copies last week alone, pushing its U.S. total to 7.3 million. And there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.
All which begs the simple question: Why is Adele so popular?
I think there are several potential answers to that question. But all of them can be boiled down to one word: authenticity. It’s a word that Adele embodies in both her music and in her down-to-earth appeal.
Musically, 21 chronicles an experience virtually everyone has had at some point: a nasty breakup. Songs about bad romance are a dime a dozen of course. But something about the brutal emotional bruising Adele details in song after wince-inducing song has absolutely connected with audiences worldwide. When she belts out, “The scars of your love remind me of us/They keep me thinking that we almost had it all/The scars of your love, they leave me breathless,” we believe her.
That earnest examination of love gone wrong is paired with a stripped-down musical style that is the antithesis of the overproduced pop that has dominated the charts for the last decade or so. There’s no Auto-Tune. No retinue of spandex-clad backup dancers writhing sensually in her videos. There’s just that voice, blasting through the emotional wreckage of an obliterated love.
If Adele’s pipes seem practically supernatural, however, she herself seems like someone who could quite easily be the girl next door. She doesn’t really look like the pop stars we’re used to seeing. She looks, well, normal.
Which is exactly how she described herself when Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld recently suggested she was “a little too fat.” “I’ve never wanted to look like models on the cover of magazines. I represent the majority of women and I’m very proud of that,” Adele countered. “I’d lose weight if I was an actress and had to play a role where you’re supposed to be 40 pounds lighter, but weight has nothing to do with my career. Even when I was signing [a contract], most of the industry knew if anyone ever dared say [lose weight] to me, they wouldn’t be working with me.”
At last night’s Brit music awards, Adele accepted one of her trophies from diminutive pop singer Kylie Minogue. “I feel like a drag queen next to you,” Adele joked. (And, in a display of “authenticity” run a bit amok, she also gave the camera a lewd hand gesture when she was cut off during her final acceptance speech because the show had run long.)
All of that authenticity has translated into the biggest musical success story in a decade. And, ironically, all of that authenticity virtually guarantees a bandwagon full of imitators who’ll no doubt try to cop Adele’s neo-soul appeal and her regular-girl vibe.
Writing for salon.com, Mike Doherty recalls another artist celebrated for his authenticity: Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain.
[Adele's] nakedly personal lyrics, and [her] aggressive, cathartic yawp … are all hallmarks of grunge-era rock. And authenticity, that elusive concept, is what Kurt Cobain was said to embody 20 years ago. As a resolutely working-class singer who penned songs about psychological pain and refused to conform to a stereotypical pop-star image, he was seen as a beacon of 'realness' in an era of manufactured pop. The same could be said of Adele. If her success is any gauge, we're entering a new era where displays of 'authenticity' will be de rigueur.
Only time will tell, of course, how much appetite music consumers actually have for Adele imitators. I suspect Doherty’s prediction will probably be correct, and we’ll see plenty of neo-soul copycats trying to bottle a little of Adele’s magic and cash in her cachet.
That said, I suspect it may be a long time before we see another singer capture the public’s imagination in quite the way this unassuming 23-year-old singer from North London has done.
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