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| Sorry, Adele, but Someone Like You has ushered in The New Boring; Brilliant article from The Guardian! | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 8 2011, 12:17 AM (547 Views) | |
| Riverwide | Oct 8 2011, 12:17 AM Post #1 |
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Sorry, Adele, but Someone Like You has ushered in The New Boring The absence of Lady Gaga at this year's Brits accidentally opened the door to Mumford & Sons and an Ed Sheeran-fronted new wave of beige pop Peter Robinson The Guardian, Saturday 8 October 2011 All pop scenes have their defining moments. Britpop's was the Blur v Oasis chart battle; with punk it was the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club; for the late-90s pop scene it was Britney Spears looking at a school uniform and thinking "oh, that'll do". You might trace pop's current big thing back to 15 February this year. Two days earlier, Lady Gaga had launched her Born This Way album campaign at the VMAs in LA by turning up inside an egg. In a move she has since regretted, she didn't come to perform at the Brits: instead of stealing the show, she gave it away. This year's Brits – with wins for Mumford & Sons and Laura Marling – was defined not by Rihanna's explosive hits medley or Take That's cast-of-thousands riot police performance, but by a woman, accompanied by a piano, banging out a ballad. "WOW!" host James Corden wailed afterwards. "Wasn't that amazing? You know, you can have all the dancers, pyrotechnics, laser shows you want, but if you sound like that all you need is a piano." Forty-nine million YouTube views suggest that Adele's gut-wrenching performance still hits the mark. But watch the performance again and this time wonder how much better it might have been with, as per Corden's suggestion, "all the dancers, pyrotechnics, laser shows you want". As it happened, Someone Like You became 2011's first pop phenomenon. In LA, Gaga had hatched out of an egg to symbolise rebirth. By not bringing a ludicrous stage show to the Brits, she ensured that the main arrival that week was of a genre which has gone on to define 2011: The New Boring, a ballad-friendly tedial wave destroying everything in its path. Now, of course, it's not directly Adele's fault that, for instance, by the time this year's X Factor boot camp rolled around, every white male contestant appeared to be attempting the self-consciously excitement-free vocal style of Tom Waits in a Strepsil famine. Nonetheless, just as Blur, Oasis and Pulp did not pen songs for Menswear but must shoulder at least some of the responsibility, there is culpability here. Let's not forget that Someone Like You's co-writer Dan Wilson had previously penned hits for bore-off allstars Semisonic, Josh Groban and Dixie Chicks, so the tune's general non-danceability must have been intentional on Adele's part and she must, sadly, accept and wear the Queen Of Boring crown. It is a crown made of SOLID BEIGE. At a point when Old Boring heroes such as Coldplay and even Leona Lewis have moved on to the dancefloor, the next generation of boring is now taking root in the charts. While Adele may have smashed down the doors, The New Boring has found its posterboy in acoustic guitar-bothering singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. Sheeran's music is like a combination of every friend-of-a-friend's band whose pub gig you have ever witnessed, and while most of us learn, during our 20s, how to sidestep these social disasters it is less easy to avoid when wedged quite so far up Radio 1's A-list. And it is no wonder the nation's favourite was quite so keen to embrace Sheeran: he combines the station's twin obsessions of authenticity (acoustic guitars!) with cool (he sometimes sort of half-raps and collaborates with urban people!). The music is – well, a David Guetta club jam it most certainly is not, and his album "+" is a 12-bore shitgun (13 if you include the bonus track). His breakthrough hit The A-Team (which, like James Blunt's first big hit, was about a girl on drugs) seemed pitched somewhere between Blunt and Jack Johnson (Sheeran cites Damien Rice in his lyrics). Cherub-faced Sheeran is a confusing prospect: for instance, in You Need Me I Don't Need You, he goes to great lengths to establish that he is a singer-songwriter who writes his own songs (except all but only four songs on his album are co-writes), and who proudly declares "I didn't go to Brit school" (although he did audition to be in ITV1's Brit School-inspired jazzhands turkey Britannia High). It may seem odd that Sheeran is so desperate to lay claim to his lyrics when they include clunky disasters like "Suffolk sadly seems to sort of suffocate me", "I'm up an' coming like I'm fucking in an elevator" and the epic "I've never owned a Blu-ray, true say" but one thing is certain: when borepop princess Birdy covered The A-Team for Fearne Cotton's Live Lounge that five minutes of music stirred up a vortex of boredom – a boretex, if you will – whose anniversary will be solemnly remembered by generations to come. The most interesting point in the Someone Like You saga came a few days after the Brits when even Kiss 100, a station not often inclined to play anything below 128bpm when a club-lolz raveathon will do, sensed a shift in the public mood and plonked the tune on its daytime playlist. At the start of 2009 the Guardian Guide ran a piece about how landfill indie, the bloated genre that gave us Scouting For Girls and the Pigeon Detectives, had become so unwieldy that there wasn't a V Festival lineup big enough to cope with its myriad hangers-on. It collapsed and left the door wide open for La Roux, Lady Gaga and electronic pop to storm into the charts. Two-and-a half years on, that exciting new wave of non-acoustic electronic pop has mutated. The global pop sound is now, thanks to David Guetta, Pitbull, Taio Cruz and a cast of thousands attempting to recreate their partyvibezzzz, a swirling mass of mindless, in-the-club party records. It reached its nadir this summer with the release of Champagne Showers by LMFAO Feat Natalia Kills, an intensely bad piece of antimusic so alarmingly awful that it rather made you wonder whether all music should in fact be banned. Thanks to The New Boring, a ban was not necessary. The New Boring has become the cold bucket of water, the ice age, the guy in bare feet in the corner of the house party imploring revellers to JUST CHILL OUT! Hold that Birdy-does-Sheeran cover close to your chest: it may just be boring enough to neutralise 2011's absurd parade of LOLpop party hits. It might reset pop. For some of us this will be an extreme test of tough love – and this is very upsetting to watch – but we must allow The New Boring to take hold, to flourish. It's a good thing, in the long run. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/oct/08/adele-new-boring-ed-sheeran |
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| Riverwide | Oct 8 2011, 12:17 AM Post #2 |
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I couldn't agree more with this. I have my issues with Popjustice from time to time, but Peter Robinson is so on the money here. |
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| GimmeSomeRiver | Oct 8 2011, 05:32 AM Post #3 |
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When I lay in bed I touch myself and I think of you
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Agree completely. |
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| Anastasia Beaverhausen | Jan 10 2012, 01:46 AM Post #4 |
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It took a time for me to appreciate Adele. I do now. In terms of internet "I can't" at those people comparing Gaga to Adele. Today I forced myself to listen to BTW(album). Great, beautiful. But Will I revisit it again? Strangely, but Adele's wins big bucks. I listen to Set fire to the rain.. compared it to TEOG, compared Smth like U to Y&I. Don't you compare the New boring to the Old boring... |
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| Riverwide | Jan 10 2012, 01:54 AM Post #5 |
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I can't agree. I keep coming back to BTW, but I was already tired of Adele's album about a month after it leaked. The variety of sounds and the ambition of BTW means it never fails to entertain me when I listen to it. There is *nothing* on Adele's album to warrant repeated listening. It's not bad for listening to when I'm having trouble sleeping, doing the hoovering or wandering around a supermarket though. |
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| TickTock | Jan 10 2012, 02:56 AM Post #6 |
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I Fckt Riverwide N Da Azz Real Hard Again
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She gets accolades because she's yet another white British girl impersonating a black soul singer from the US. Amy Winehouse was the same deal, as was Duffy. It Adele was black, no one would be taking notice of her fat ass. Her voice is boring as fuck. |
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| Riverwide | Jan 10 2012, 03:07 AM Post #7 |
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She does have a very, very boring voice. |
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| Anastasia Beaverhausen | Jan 10 2012, 03:46 AM Post #8 |
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Kinda, but sings great, songs are perfect. When i listen to her I don't find it boring now, though I did find it boring not as far as in summer. She is no that singer from the destroyed house with Eminem, no. what was her? she had nooooooo voice at all. Can't remember pop songs this perfection in a years, welldone ballads (remember my folder with Pugacheva? they were good:))) I should add smth there! Adele's voice is not perfect, but it is perfect for the songs. Gaga's voice is not perfect too, you know))) I like it that you prefer Gaga over her, 'cause I don't, very truthful. I do understand anyone who gives Gaga much more credit in everything than Adele. I just wouldn't sing along in my head now and in 5 years Magdalena song, but I would sing 4-5 songs from Adele's album. Though I might sing along the edge.... no. Adele is the intuition of public to get real melodies, not the production and tricks, for me it has it. But I think of PJ guy is wrong to compare them. That just shows some 'monster' of him, let it be. |
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| Anastasia Beaverhausen | Jan 10 2012, 04:02 AM Post #9 |
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Don't start me on Duffy. I remember she was harshly hissed off in some club in Moscow cause she clearly has no voice at all. like. at ALL. Barby pretending Bridgit Bardot. |
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| johnnox | Jan 10 2012, 12:47 PM Post #10 |
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In years to come, people will still be listening to 21. They will not be listening to Born This Way. On production value alone, Born This Way will date quickly. And Riv, how can you claim Adele has a boring voice when you adore Dido! Surely, the Reigning Queen of Whisper Thin Voices? |
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| Riverwide | Jan 10 2012, 12:55 PM Post #11 |
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Which "people" are you referring to? I'm not one of those people. I'm quite sure many people will still be listening to BOTH albums years from now. BTW's production is as timeless or not as any of Madonna's albums. We all still listen to them, don't we? Great pop music doesn't suddenly stop being enjoyable 5 or 10 or 20 years later. So sorry, but that argument doesn't really hold water. As for Dido's voice vs Adele's voice, you're *completely* missing my point. Dido has a soft voice with little range, BUT that does not mean that it's boring. Having a big bellowing forghorn voice doesn't make it interesting. Adele's voice truly does nothing for me. It has very little character. With Dido, it may not be a big voice, but you'd *instantly* recognise it, because it's actually pretty unique. The same with Norah Jones. They are utterly unique and instantly recognisable, Adele sounds like dozens of other big-voiced bland singers. It does nothing for me. No goosebumps. Nothing. Couple that with mediocre material and you have an artist that hold little appeal for me(and I'm sure quite a few others). |
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| johnnox | Jan 10 2012, 01:06 PM Post #12 |
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Which people? Music fans.
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| Riverwide | Jan 10 2012, 01:09 PM Post #13 |
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| Anastasia Beaverhausen | Jan 10 2012, 06:24 PM Post #14 |
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Though standing on Adele's side, the arguments of Dido (thanks) voice being unique gave me chills. it is unique. Songs are the OLD and NEVER-ever-ending BORE. maybe Adele is too. Time will tell |
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| Beautiful Stranger | Jan 10 2012, 08:18 PM Post #15 |
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Adele's 3 year old debut album is current selling more copies per week than Gaga's most recent album, which is still releasing singles, and RITD (or SLY in some overseas markets) has sold more and gotten more airplay than any Gaga track. That sums up whose going to have the bigger catalog sellers and get more multi-format recurrent radio airplay. Adele's voice is stunningly average, there are only 4 notable songs on 21, and BTW is the superior set of songs, but Adele is simply the greater commercial force AND will be taken far more seriously in retrospect than Gaga will be with her stupid, UGLY attention-seeking costumes and rah-rah muh-muh-muh lyrics. Adele and her career trajectory may very well go the direction of Alanis and not someone like Madonna, but the fact remains Gaga's antics have overshadowed the music in the public's eyes, and that will never change. |
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| Riverwide | Jan 10 2012, 08:31 PM Post #16 |
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You're probably right, but that doesn't say a lot for the public. GaGa's voice and music are far better and more interesting than Adele's, and yet they will go for the safe, "cool" option. I just fail to see why people ignore great music just because someone is wearing a crazy outfit. What on earth does that have to do with the music? Nothing. There's no reason to love GaGa because of the outfits, but equally, that's not a reason to hate her either. It should ALWAYS be about the music, but alas, it isn't. It probably can't ever be really. |
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| Manu Alexz | Jan 12 2012, 02:41 AM Post #17 |
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Poor brave Gaga but she was doomed since the beginning, she's always seen as a joke while ADELE is a serious, mature artist. Both are disposable and non-memorable. |
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| Manu Alexz | Jan 12 2012, 02:43 AM Post #18 |
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People are not ignoring Gaga because of outfits, though. People are ignoring Gaga's music because Cascada released it 5 years ago. And the whole "gay defendor" and"little monster" thing are so embarassing. Nobody who considers himself serious will listen to her in public. In my office everybody laughed at her when she released a song called Judas. |
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| Beautiful Stranger | Jan 12 2012, 05:28 AM Post #19 |
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I can't @ the last two posts coming from a BRITNEY SPEARS fan.
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| Anastasia Beaverhausen | Jan 12 2012, 12:12 PM Post #20 |
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quot: GaGa's voice and music are far better and more interesting than Adele's wait for Gaga making the Justiify My Love, it is happening right now)))))))) |
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