Adele

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, better known as Adele, is a British singer and songwriter. She was born in London on 5^th May 1988 (Nicole, 2011). She started singing and writing songs when she was four years old. She has graduated from the BRIT Learning School of Arts and Technology Performance located in Croydon, where she improved her singing and songwriting talents. Adele was greatly influenced by the Spice girls and according to her own words, that influence defined her further career. She exploited MySpace site to achieve notification by the pop musical fans;  she was granted a contract for recording from the XL Recordings when one of her  friends sent a demo on MySpace site (Nicole, 2011).

Adele was generally recognized after appearing in BBE Radio with her single the “Daydreamer” and later on the television show with Holland Jools. Adele became a significant personality in the world of music in 2008-2009 when she was pronounced the Best New Artist and got the award for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in the US at the 2009 Grammy Awards(Adele TV, 2012). She has also been named the most favorite artist one cannot deny watching, as her songs depict the real life occurrences, and they are lively and beautifully presented. In addition, she was awarded the Brits Awards and also won the BBC Sound of 2008. The main point of this paper is to discuss Adele’s life and work in the musical industry.

Adele as a new artist and songwriter started her career being inspired by the female singing groups like the Destiny’s Child  and the Spice girls. She enjoyed singing very much and has released many single albums such as “Chasing pavements” which was nominated for the best choreography video by the MTV Music Awards and her “Debut album” which held the highest positions in the market. Her singing and songwriting career was boosted by appearing live on Saturday Nights in the US in 2008. Later in 2010, she released the preview of her second single album 21, which was also ranked as the best in the US sales (4Music, 2012).

She released her second album in the beginning of 2011 which exceeded her debut success (Music Lovers Group, 2011). This album made her win many awards such as, six Grammy Awards this year (it was the Album of the Year), two Brits Awards and three America Musical Awards. Indeed, 21 album has been holding the top position longer than other albums.

Adele is associated with Intentism school of art (Norman, 2011). All intentists originated from various backgrounds, though, they always question the relating ideas of the importance of the work. Intentists have a belief that art could send the artist’s message to his/her expected audience.

Intentism as a movement celebrates and recognizes the relation existing between the creator and the artist’s conception. Intentists have some principles which include:

• The artist is able to transfer his /her message to the expected audience. The significance of the work is generally recognized in the intention of the artist. All the significance is generally the perfectioning outwork of the intention (Norman, 2011).
• Zero accountability result dues to a confusing, hidden or repudiated intention.
•  Intentists also believe that, enforcing restrictions to the artists and the censorship occurs when artist omits their intention.

Artists play an important role in the creation of art up to the final part, where they are always celebrated by the intents. A common subject occurs when authorial irony of the artist could only be understood through comparison of the artist work and the author intention.

The artist has a linear expectation for his/her text because the audience reads the artist performance from the start to the beginning. An artist could also use painting and sculptures as narratives, since the audience could approach the artist’s work in a multiple orderly manner. The Intenism school of art also includes Postmodernism art, which involves painting (Norman, 2011). Postmodernism art movement has popularized the Intenism school of art. The artist takes part in exhibiting his/her work in either solo intentist exhibit or group intentist shows. Artists  demonstrate their talents in public to become famous. Artists who belong to the Intenism school art and are songwriters like Adele, have to smoothen their song writing skills in order to improve their writing status and be termed as good songwriters.

The Intentism school of arts supports the idea that the artists are always free to send their message to the viewers keeping in mind that, the significance of the artist work is generally recognized from the artist intention rather than from the audience interpretation. I absolutely agree with the saying of this school of art that the meaning of the artist’s message is basically the perfection of outworking the artist’s intention. The Intenism school of art teaches that zero artist’s accountability result dues to artist’s intention if it is confused, denied or hidden.In my opinion, the school of art states that if the artists omit their intention, the school trainer can enforce restrictions and even start to control the artist’s work more stricktly.

Various artists who are also associated with Intenism school of art include Jessie J. who is a singer, a rapper and a songwriter from the UK, Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011 as a song composer and a singer, Rihanna, a singer from Bajan, Beyoncé and others (Last FM, 2012). They are also the artists who released the most successful records of the 2011.

During the last two years Adele has refined and invented a lot in her special sounds which place her tender and powerful lyrics and words at the fore front. She has combined her piano ballads with the favourite music genres such as the gospel, blues, R&B, and American country. Her music is simple and exciting. Her song collection depicts an incredible growth of the artist, considering the fact that she is only twenty two years old. Her music has taken new various directions and maintained the true signature of her style. Adele has recently discovered many artists who she had never heard of before such as Yvonne Fair, Neko Case, Wanda Jackson (Nicole, 2011). These artists have inspired her a lot in the establishment of her single albums. Basically, throughout her songwriting and artist work, she has proved to the whole world that, she is the favorite artist maintaining the true image of herself,  since the power of her voice cannot be repudiated. Her songs contain mixing of old and new sounds which create an entirely new sound that one cannot stop listening to. Adele has proved that she clearly understands it, trying to make her songs keep step with the upcoming music tendencies.

Adele’s song “Someone like you ” was written together with Dan Wilson for her second album . The songs talks about how the blue eyed ballad soul and the piano were inspired by a ruined relationship . Since the XL Recordings were always eagerly waiting for her to release any new song, they released the single song, the second in the album, in January 2011 (Music Lovers Group, 2011). Adele was accompanied by her co-writer Dan, who was playing the piano. In  “Someone like you ” she tells about the end of the relationship with her former boyfriend (Slinky Sunbeam ). This song was highly praised for performing and for the lyrics. The song was also chosen as the album highlight and acknowledged positive reviews from the musical critics. The song won the Brit 2011 awards and was her first single in the UK which became number one and remained on the top list chart for five weeks (4Music, 2012). Through this song Adele was named the first British lady solo singer in the Billboard Hot 100 history, where her two songs of the same album won these awards. The video demonstrated how Adele walked along the streets deeply depressed. Critics were praising the song, commenting that it sounded simply and perfectly at the same time.

Adele’s 21 album is her second album which was released on January 2011 and was named after her age. The album has shared the folk motives with her debuting album 19 which also inspired her tour in North America (Music Lovers Group, 2011). Since the singer had already separated with her lover, the video showed the exploring heartbreak, self examining, forgiveness and anger, as she had started writing this album when she was already involved in the relationship which inspired her to write. Since she was not satisfied with portraying herself again as the music tragedy of her debut, she had planned to write an extra song. She lacked inspiration, thus, ending the studio sessions prematurely. Later, she restarted producing the album straightaway after her relationship broke down, which resulted in heartbreaking motive and depression in her songs.

The critics always applauded the video due to its clarity, its genuineness and Adele’s vocal performance. Her songs are still in the top lists in many countries. The album received favorable reviews from the critics. Obviously, album 21 has established the introduction of the real adult life, where growing responsibilities crash with heartbreaking and deep emotional wounds. John Murphy stated that, “21 album identified the themes of sadness, pain and anger”. He added that the album is one of the greatest breaking up videos and the first impressing record of the year 2011. Another critic John Pareles said that, “Adele could be sobbing, rasping, swooping making the viewer to lose concentration on her and be keen on the song”.

Another Adele’s work is “Love song”, which is  perfectly composed. The song was a highlight of the 21 album and it moved the track version. As usual, the song was taken by the audience with a great excitement. Reviewers continued commenting that Adele’s song depicted her maturity as a singer and song composer.

Adele is without doubt a great artist and a talented singer. Her work is overwheliming; though she has become famous at a young age , the quality of her work is improving with a big progress. 21 album is her current work and its popularity is increasing day in day all around the world.