19 (Expended Edition)

by

Adele

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There's no disputing the gifts of Tottenham-born Adele Adkins, the latest BRIT graduate to stroll into the charts. As we know from her single Chasing Pavements, she has a sensational voice: rich, robust, voluptuously bluesy.

Is she the new Amy Winehouse?

It is not quite right.

True, both are white girls who owe a debt to black soul, both sing with a London twang ("I don't get nuffin' back," rasps Adele on the punchy "Tired"), and both are in pieces because their man done them wrong.

Eleven of the 12 songs on Adele's debut are about heartbreak (the other, "Hometown Glory", is about how cool London is).

Adele, though, is easier to listen to than Winehouse. Her music is cleaner, less menacing: there's the bright acoustic-guitar chime of "Daydreamer", the lullaby twinkle of "First Love", the plush strings of "Melt My Heart to Stone".

Her mesmerising singing tone, honest lyrics, jazz and soul influences, and brash Cockney speaking accent, echo Amy. But Adele's delivery is far more delicate.

Lyrically she's simpler, too, occasionally even soppy: "When there's no one there to dry your tears, I could hold you for a million years," she gushes on "Make You Feel My Love".

Where Back to Black sounded emotionally and musically true, almost everything on the covers-all-bases "19" sounds like it was absorbed by osmosis at the London's BRIT School for Performing Arts (where she, Katie Melua, Leona Lewis, Kate Nash and Winehouse are alumni).

Some will find Adele rigidly old-fashioned. Her influences (Etta James, Dusty Springfield, Billie Holiday) are from another age.

A cursory listen may lead you to conclude that Adele has a voice way in excess of her years. In terms of technical ability, that's true.

The instrumentation seems designed to usher you to that conclusion: a dash of jazz bass, the odd string arrangement that seems to take its cue from Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy".

"Sumptuous one moment then fragile the next, this is an album dripping with beauty and class.

Adele's voice caresses and inspires, and is superbly supplemented by piano, guitar and glorious orchestration".(Lee Davis)

All that we can say is that she sings with unabashed passion about a kind of pain we can all recognise, and that sort of thing doesn't date.

Made of Bricks

Piece by Piece

Spirit

Always

Rockferry

My partner's and my love affair with Adele was a slow-starter. We first heard her on SNL. As we heard "Chasing Pavements" every now and then, we'd say to one another, "I think I like that song, " then "I'm really starting to love that song," then "We have to buy that CD."

Well we bought the CD at Christmas time. I have got to say we love all the songs. LOVE THEM. We are the kind of people who will listen to something over and over until we are sick. The back buttons on all our CD players are worn from repeatedly listening to the same tracks over and over.

It would be the same with 19 if the quality of the recording wasn't so damn poor! It's horribly distorted and difficult to listen to unless the equalizer is set to flat. I thought it was our stereo at first, then perhaps that the CD was damaged but I have seen a few other comments on the web about the quality of the recording. It's a shame because it really distracts from the pleasure of listening to the album and robs her great voice of its depth.