ADELE
Live At The Royal Albert Hall
[XL]
Do sales equate to quality? It's an age-old question for those from an independent background. Adele is a prime example. WTF? I hear you say. How can you sell ten million odd albums without being good? Fair question... kinda. I'm not suggesting Adele is undeserving of some success, but ten million albums? That's getting into Michael Jackson territory. Beatles territory. Elvis territory. Is Adele the equal of any of those folks? There's no doubt she has a handful of very good songs - Rumour Has It, Someone Like You, Rolling In The Deep, you've heard them - and a very real, girl-next-door appeal (the "she could lose some weight" calls hold no sway with me at all), but her singing range is limited, her lyrical content entirely one-dimensional and her between-song banter is far more entertaining than the songs themselves. I really couldn't imagine being the poor bloke her award-winning 21 album was written about - and he gets a fair few mentions during the course of this performance too - but that shared experience of "arsehole ex-boyfriends" goes some way to explaining her appeal. Alongside her fishmonger's wife's accent and personality. Good, without being great. Which is pretty much the definition of MOR.
2 and 1/2 stars from 5
Please click here for a list of the 12 Most Disappointing Facts About Popular Music, which puts a lovely bookend on the 'do sales equate to quality?' question. And prepare for serious disillusionment...
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