Adele's 'Hello': Overrated?

[Mr. Carnelian]

66030

Are you, like me, a bit tired of this song?

Is it a pop masterpiece, or a symptom of Adele's decline from an exciting and original artist to yet another derivative wailer?

Discuss.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I haven't heard it. :shrug:

[Mr. Carnelian]

I haven't heard it. :shrug:

I don't know HOW you've managed that. It's smurfing everywhere!

[Crop]

I haven't heard it either actually. I've never been a fan of Adele anyway, so I doubt I'd like it.

[Freya]

I let youtube auto-play on my TV when I'm doing household chores and goddamn, it doesn't matter what genre I'm listening to, hello always gets thrown in to play next. I've had to scramble to change it several times. It's annoying.

[Fynn]

I had to actively look for it to actually listen to it. It's a great song :up: Adele is one of those singers whose voice I don't get tired of. I never really got how overexposure to something can ruin it, especially when it comes to music. I can still love Gangnam Style, in spite of it being everywhere back in the day :monster:

Still, my discovery of Hello overlapped with my discovery of Lana Del Rey, so maybe I'm not tired of it because I've been listening to different things?

Oh well. Guess I should just go back and do my own thing overanalyzing video game music XD

[Mr. Carnelian]

Oh well. Guess I should just go back and do my own thing overanalyzing video game music XD

Yeah, get back into your corner, nerd! :p

It just seems to me that Adele is in a creative rut. Obviously, musical tastes differ. There are no right or wrong answers. :)

[Fynn]

Oh well. Guess I should just go back and do my own thing overanalyzing video game music XD

Yeah, get back into your corner, nerd! :p

It just seems to me that Adele is in a creative rut. Obviously, musical tastes differ. There are no right or wrong answers. :)

After 12 years of musical education and being married to someone with a BA in musicology I can tell you that, yes, indeed, you can analyze music to determine its quality :p

Though I have to say, I am MUCH more tired of Uptown Funk than Hello :p

[Mr. Carnelian]

After 12 years of musical education and being married to someone with a BA in musicology I can tell you that, yes, indeed, you can analyze music to determine its quality :p

I'm not saying that music can't be analysed. But, whether or nor you like a piece of music can be affected by personal taste. People can enjoy an objectively bad song, or hate an objectively good song. That doesn't make them right or wrong.

[Zeldy]

I only hear her music on adverts. Most of my recollection of the current 'hit playlist' are the exerts I hear in those CD compilations ads. I havent heard it all the way through; she's a pretty big deal though. I'm a bit sick of seeing her face.

[Fynn]

I don't even know if there is an ex-boyfriend about whom the songs are. They're just songs. They don't have to be about anything in real life. Granted, i know nothing about their actual background. But I still just love Adele for her voice.

That reminds me. i finally need to record me singing Let It Go...

[Shauna]

Beyoncé has made her entire career singing about how men are terrible, but I am sure that she doesn't really hate men. This kind of thing happens. x}

[Rocket Edge]

It's her best song, though not really my taste and I find her previous songs to be awfully morbid. If I hear her on the radio I switch it over before the I start making sad faces.

[Mr. Carnelian]

Don't get me wrong: Adele has done some great songs.

My favourites are 'Lovesong' and 'One and Only'. I just feel that she's started to default to a very samey, derivative sound. 'Hello' could easily have been a song from either of her other albums, it would fit in perfectly.

If that's not a creative rut, then I don't know what is.

[Bubba]

I tend to listen to XFM so I rarely hear this song. WHen I first heard it I remember thinking that first verse is boring and will probably grate after a while. It seems I was right!

[fat_moogle]

Beyoncé has made her entire career singing about how men are terrible, but I am sure that she doesn't really hate men. This kind of thing happens. x}
Halo from the other side ;p

[Freya]

I actually like the song i'm just tired of it being overplayed everywhere is all. Then mass media finds something they like they beat it to death.

[Pumpkin]

I hadn't heard it either, so I'm listening to it now. It's alright, I don't like or dislike it. She does have a really great voice


I actually like the song i'm just tired of it being overplayed everywhere is all. Then mass media finds something they like they beat it to death.

My mom says she had this problem with Stairway to Heaven. To this day she practically throws a chair when she hears it. She used to love it but I guess they played it to absolute death and she got so sick of it

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I haven't heard it. :shrug:

I don't know HOW you've managed that. It's smurfing everywhere!

I mostly listen to my own music, or internet channels focused on what I like, or public radio. Looooots of public access radio. :cool:

[Shauna]

Creative rut or sticking to what makes her money?

[Mr. Carnelian]

Creative rut or sticking to what makes her money?

Why not both?

I thought you said you were working on your dissertation, Formy? Tut, tut, tut. :p

Anywho, I'm shocked to see such cynicism from you both. The very idea that musical artists might deliberately repeat a winning formula ad infinitum just to get more money! It boggles the mind. :whoa:

[Fynn]

When you gotta eat, you gotta eat :monster:

[MJN SEIFER]

I never really got how overexposure to something can ruin it, especially when it comes to music.


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Actually for me, the fact that Let it Go was played everywhere helped me love it. I was happy at the fact that a song from a children's movie was being treated like a real song. I tend not to mind songs being overplayed.

I don't really find "Hello" overrated - there's very few songs I don't like, and "Hello" is not one of them.

[Midgar Mist]

As Mr Carnelian says, it IS derivative wailing. She passed her best after Rolling In the Deep and Someone Like You (Dan Wilson so helped her out there). And Im looking forward to a thread on Fynns analysis of Final Fantasy music, being new here and all.

[Night Fury]

*Adele fan*

Adele is not in a creative rut. She's making the music that SHE wants to make, and that she feels. She's been on record saying that she doesn't care what people think of her music as long as someone out there thinks she's being honest and true. I get damn tired of people complaining about the likes of over sexualised pop stars and crying out for someone with talent, yet they slate Adele and find her overrated. She's easy enough to avoid. Hello is a great song, and When We Were Young is also brilliant. Adele doesn't need to reinvent herself, she doesn't need to keep coming up with something new and exciting - that's not Adele, Adele is Adele and she sings her feelings from events in her life.

Also proper pisses me off when people slate female artists for singing about relationships, stop trying to police and criticise our voice. Both Adele and Taylor Swift get it, but there are some amazing Adele songs that you may not have heard that just so poignantly describe the ending of a relationship, I Found a Boy for example. Stunning song.

TLDR; LEAVE ADELE ALONE.

[Slothy]

I hate radio so I am not tired of the song.

[Mirage]

What is the rating for this song? Hard to say if it's overrated if you don't know that.

[fat_moogle]

What is the rating for this song? Hard to say if it's overrated if you don't know that.
Rated O for Overplayed.

[Ayen]

I don't listen to the radio that much, so... Never heard it.

I thought this was going to be the Numa Numa Song at first, and now I am disappoint.

[Miriel]

To all those going on about Adele being in a creative rut, I will point you to Elizabeth Gilbert's shockingly great new book on creativity called Big Magic, which, no lie, has been a life changing eye opener for me as someone who works in the creative field:


Maybe you fear that you are not original enough.

Maybe that’s the problem—you’re worried that your ideas are commonplace and pedestrian, and therefore unworthy of creation.
Aspiring writers will often tell me, “I have an idea, but I’m afraid it’s already been done.”

Well, yes, it probably has already been done. Most things have already been done—but they have not yet been done by you.
By the time Shakespeare was finished with his run on life, he’d pretty much covered every story line there is, but that hasn’t stopped nearly five centuries of writers from exploring the same story lines all over again. (And remember, many of those stories were already clichés long before even Shakespeare got his hands on them.) When Picasso saw the ancient cave paintings at Lascaux, he reportedly said, “We have learned nothing in twelve thousand years”—which is probably true, but so what?

So what if we repeat the same themes? So what if we circle around the same ideas, again and again, generation after generation? So what if every new generation feels the same urges and asks the same questions that humans have been feeling and asking for years? We’re all related, after all, so there’s going to be some repetition of creative instinct. Everything reminds us of something. But once you put your own expression and passion behind an idea, that idea becomes yours.

Anyhow, the older I get, the less impressed I become with originality. These days, I’m far more moved by authenticity. Attempts at originality can often feel forced and precious, but authenticity has quiet resonance that never fails to stir me.

Just say what you want to say, then, and say it with all your heart.

Share whatever you are driven to share.

If it’s authentic enough, believe me—it will feel original.

Adele does whatever the fuck she wants. That's been clear about her from the beginning. And that's why people love her. Have you ever seen her in interviews? She gives no shits if she doesn't conform to whatever your expectations might be. She sings her heart out with that magnificent voice of her's about the things she wants to sing about, and it works. Who the hell cares if she's singing about the same themes she's sung about before? She's amazing and I love her.

[Mr. Carnelian]

Look, I never meant to slate Adele. I'm not judging her subject matte, or her talent. She's got a great voice, and is a great songwriter.

But, for me personally, her songs have become a bit samey. That isn't an attack on her personally. It's just my opinion on her songs. If each one speaks to you in a unique way, that's great! But, for me personally, they just repeat the same few messages.

Now can we all dial down the defensiveness/aggressiveness/passive-aggressiveness, please? :p

[Del Murder]

Amusing that you ask to dial down 'aggression' in a thread calling an artist's work overrated and opening with the phrase 'derivative wailer'. :p

Anyway, if you think that post was defensive then you are going to have a hard time dealing with conflict when it actually comes your way. When someone doesn't agree with you and tells you so and why, that doesn't automatically make them defensive or aggressive.

Though I will give Formy a pass because those knee-jerk come to your SO's defense posts are hard to resist, even when completely unnecessary. ;)

[Colonel Angus]

https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/12308605_1658514401073056_5658780614746492728_n.jpg?oh=21046144915e5f74f6afb4572477facd&oe=5718D287

[Ayen]

See that green spot in the image? That's Luigi suffocating in Mario's shadow.

[Rostum]

Adele has an amazing voice, but man this song is a downer. Especially after being played on the radio for the 1,000th time.

[Sephex]

I'm...not sure if I heard it. My work environment is on a shop floor. While I can listen to my own music on headphones certain tasks require me to have my ears open so I hear random pop and rap on the radio. I have no idea how anyone listens to the radio as it is. The commercials are way too excessive and all stations cycle through the same 8 to 12 songs an hour. Occasionally they'll try to spice things up by playing a hit from a few years ago to seem like they have variety.

I try not to get music snobbish because there is something out there for everyone. The same rush I get when I hear a well crafted guitar solo in a prog metal song is the same type of rush someone else might get if they hear someone on American Idol wail. Coincidentally, my father and I were talking about this today and we both feel that it's a shame that the music industry in general doesn't care at ALL for people who play instruments. It's all about people singing. That's fine and all, but I feel people focus WAY too much on that.

Even when the odd band that does break the mainstream, no one really cares too much how people play. They only care if something is catchy or whatever. Again, I know there are people out there that enjoy things like that, but to me it is very bland and boring.

Anyway, I just wanted to weigh in on having an opinion about music in general. I think arguing about musical taste is a waste of time. Even if you find someone that closely matches your taste in music chances are not too many people will feel the same exact way that other people do. Songs get overplayed and will always get overplayed till the end of time. There's always going to be that song out there that one can't stand. And there will always be people that don't like things you can't fathom people not liking. I once angered my father because I told him I didn't care for The Who. People have gotten upset at me because I think Queen is just alright. I HATE Bill Joel's "Piano Man." I'm sure one of those opinions set someone off who is reading it. But getting mad at that would be just as silly as getting mad at people eating different things than--

*looks at Quina's Kitchen*

Oh.


Oh...


Ohhhhhhhhh........

[Fynn]

Also, if I may add to the conflict/aggressiveness part, the topic opened as a debate on whether she's in a creative rut, not if you like her or not. What now you try to reiterate to being subjective, you first tried to place in an objective light. People have provided strong arguments why it's not a creative rut. And since the people who provided you with counterarguments are passionate about her, can you really blame them for being riled up? :p

[Night Fury]

If you thought any part of my post was passive aggressive or defensive then you're mistaken. I've directly addressed points that have been made in this thread.

[Slothy]

Debate is aggressive/defensive now? Oh my...

[Mr. Carnelian]

You wound me with your cutting barb, Vivi. :p

I'm a bit stressed out from Christmassy stuff, so I'm probably reading too much into stuff and being paranoid. It just seemed like people were saying that I have some kind of personal grudge against Adele or saying that she's untalented.

Let me reiterate that I don't think the deficiencies of 'Hello' - which I'm personally not that fond of - are due to any kind of lack of talent on Adele's part. Rather, I think she's wasting her talent on unchallenging, market-ready material. I know she could do better, so I'm a bit disappointed.

[Slothy]

Sadly passion can be difficult to discern from things like anger when talking over interwebs. It's all good.

[Formalhaut]

Sadly passion can be difficult to discern from things like anger when talking over interwebs. It's all good.

Smiley's do help though. :p

[escobert]

I haven't heard it. :shrug:

I don't know HOW you've managed that. It's smurfing everywhere!
Not too hard when you don't listen to the radio or watch TV :p

[Ayen]

Aggression? Defensiveness? Passive-aggression? Paranoia?

http://45.media.tumblr.com/468db84836d27e1a21df896b337b176b/tumblr_n1tjsc5gSa1qems7ao2_500.gif

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Okay, so I took a listen.

It's a decent song. I found it a little repetitive, but not too bad. She managed to squeeze a little more length out of it compared to many other pop songs.

Also, over 730 million views? Daaaaamn. Apparently a lot people don't think she's played out.

[Rin Heartilly]

I'm indifferent, I don't love or hate the song. I looked it up when everyone was hyping it and I was a bit disappointed, it was a good song but she has better songs, didn't live up to the hype for me. Music video was kinda blah. Also it's Adel so if a less famous singer was singing it, I doubt the song would be blasting everywhere.

[Shiny]

I love Adele but this song and her video for it are boring and redundant.

Less snippy comments to each other and more about the song though please.

[Formalhaut]

Less snippy comments to each other and more about the song though please.

Noted. :)

I actually went ahead and listened to some of the rest of her album, and there are a few good songs. In particular I liked River Lea and Million Years Ago. I Miss You is also a good song, which reminds me of Florence + The Machine's sound.

Ultimately though, I just find the album retreads ground already covered. I fear we're going to have to disagree on this, Miriel. For me, a soulful melody becomes insipid with repetition. I agree with you that authenticity is always essential, and is in fact one of Adele's key strengths. But Adele, as the album title states, is older. She is 27 now, and she must have had a wide range of experiences. She is a mother, and has found fame and fortune. No doubt she has opinions on both, as well as other personal topics that relate to her. I'd find it interesting for a few of her songs to concentrate on these areas, explore them.

The vast majority of her songs are related to heartbreak and personal relationships. In and of itself, this is perfectly fine. But by now, I personally would find it a missed opportunity to not song-write about other areas of her life that are just as compelling and interesting as personal heartbreak. It is not silencing or policing the female voice in any respect, and I don't feel anyone on this board has done so. Female song-writers, no, all song-writers should be encouraged to explore personal topics that matter to them. Adele does this, and should be applauded for doing so.

Rather than silencing her voice, I would think it a good idea for her to use her voice to explore other areas of her life. She has done so in some places: the odd song in 25 touches upon other issues; Million Years Ago reflectively looks upon old friends, and Remedy explores themes about her family.

Should Adele continue to write more songs, I do hope she continues to write songs in that similar vein. There's nothing wrong about singing about heartbreak, but I just feel like after three albums, we have yet to see other emotions other than seriously sombre. It is difficult not to picture Adele in black and white.

[Fynn]

Should Adele continue to write more songs, I do hope she continues to write songs in that similar vein. There's nothing wrong about singing about heartbreak, but I just feel like after three albums, we have yet to see other emotions other than seriously sombre. It is difficult not to picture Adele in black and white.

Honestly though, why is this a problem? Or something that needs to change? It's her style. It's how she likes to express herself. There's a place for this. We don't need Adele to sing about other things since there's plenty of other artists to deliver on that front. Just let her do what she likes best. It's not like she's contractually obligated to sing about other stuff too.

I don't want to sound mean, but from a creator's standpoint I just feel that it's a pretty dickish thing to expect a creator to make something in a specific way. The reader is always right when they something is wrong with your text, but they're always wrong when it comes to solutions.

As you're only a casual Adele listener (as am I) take a look at this from another perspective. Someone I know played FFVII and loved it. Then they beat VIII, and was still happy about it, if a bit underwhelmed. And then they didn't even finish IX. Why? Because they felt they were essentially the same game with a paint job. All FFs are about saving the world in one way or another, character development, plot twists, and some metaphysical stuff. And yes, that's true - but for fans, that's exactly WHY they come into the series, why they keep playing it, why they love it. And they love it enough that they see past the similarities and will tell you in vivid detail how different they are. So this here's why Adele has no obligation to change anything about her art and there's nothing objectively wrong about her consistent tone. It's your opinion - you don't like it, and that's that.

[Freya]

I think I read that she didn't write the songs herself for this album. Like she did but she had help this time. While her last album they were all written by herself with no help.

For more fuel to this fire

[Fynn]

Whoop

Freya just set fire to the rain

[Formalhaut]

I don't want to sound mean, but from a creator's standpoint I just feel that it's a pretty dickish thing to expect a creator to make something in a specific way. The reader is always right when they something is wrong with your text, but they're always wrong when it comes to solutions...

... So this here's why Adele has no obligation to change anything about her art and there's nothing objectively wrong about her consistent tone. It's your opinion - you don't like it, and that's that.

It's precisely my opinion. Look, I'm not telling Adele to change her music style. There's a lot of talk of 'expectations' whenever I post, so perhaps I should clarify that I'm not like some bullying studio director wanting to change her entire artform. I don't expect her to change her music simply because I would prefer her to do something else. It's not 'dickish', and I am not a 'dick', for simply stating my polite, reasoned suggestion. And suggestions do not have to be listened to, either.

:monster:

[Night Fury]

Finally listened to this new Adele album and it's totally different to the other tones in her other albums, it's fantastic and she rocks so yeah go listen to the album before you call her out for bein samey.

[Formalhaut]

I actually went ahead and listened to some of the rest of her album, and there are a few good songs. In particular I liked River Lea and Million Years Ago. I Miss You is also a good song, which reminds me of Florence + The Machine's sound.


Finally listened to this new Adele album and it's totally different to the other tones in her other albums, it's fantastic and she rocks so yeah go listen to the album before you call her out for bein samey.

I have, as a matter of fact. It's a weird sort of album where the songs that will never get as much of a spotlight as her more well-known ones (Hello, for example) were actually my favourite songs of the bunch. I loved the experimental ones the most, basically. :D

[Bri]

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

[Foo]

Strongly Dislike.

[Aerith's Knight]

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in your smile.

The only true hello song.

[Bri]

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

I can see it in your eyes, I can see it in your smile.

The only true hello song.

I strongly agree! :nod: