Adele sings beautifully and I can only hope that this song was actually a composition of hers since I would very much like to believe she is more than a voice. But the one thing that makes me want to listen to her more is the very thing she is being made fun of for and that is, her weight.
Now, normally for me, music is purely an aural experience. I don't actually care what the musicians/bands I've listened to look like because really, who gives a fuck? You're supposed to LISTEN to music, not watch it despite what Mtv taught a generation of young Americans. Adele is overweight, but not fat, and for this she is derided and I don't really don't understand that at all. While in real life, I'm incredibly biased against fat and overweight people (especially women since I want to be attracted to them), in music, it's about the SOUND, not the look. Mama Cass, of The Mamas and The Papas fame, is no pleasure to look at, but one listen to "Make Your Own Kind of Music" and her cover of "Dream a Little Dream" and your ears are in love. That being said, Adele's voice (at least in "Rolling in the Deep" - I have yet to venture forth into her catalog) is fucking amazing and I'm glad to have been able to have heard it.
One thing that has bugged me about music, and I'm sure this has been true since the beginning and not just the advent of Mtv, is the emphasis of the look over the sound. For me, in music, if you're more concerned about your looks and image than your sound, you're doing it wrong. If you happen to be handsome or hot, hey, great for you. By all means, revel in that coincidence. The trouble is, I highly doubt the incredible coincidences present in music, especially female musicians. Wow, you're all hot, really? That tells you something must be wrong. I'm not saying none of these women (and the occasional prettyboy) aren't talented or at least competent singers, but really? No fat and/or ugly people have any talent in this world to share with us? And in the one medium where they need not be judged for their appearance on top of that? Go fuck yourselves music industry.
That being said, in a perverse way, I am glad Adele is not some skinny white chick strutting her stuff in skimpy outfits belting out a tune like that. I'd still like the song, but I'd be skeptical of her. The sad thing, we all know the many obstacles set before Adele before she could get a recording contract simply because of her weight and I imagine she must be facing enormous pressures to lose that weight now that she's suddenly popular/famous. I'm not calling her a "real woman" or "big and beautiful" because I don't believe in any of that shit. It's not a coincidence that the only people who are telling you that beauty is more than skin deep are obviously flawed in some way. I don't mean to imply that I only care about looks. Far from it, intelligence and personality matter even more in the end because of the three, only looks fade. However, beauty is certainly not fat...at least not in a country of plenty. If food were hard to come by, a woman who were fat would most certainly be attractive, nay hot. However, when food in plentiful and cheap, remaining skinny in the face of overwhelming temptation is the more attractive option.
Anyhow, the sad thing is, because Adele is overweight, she has greater credibility in an industry that hasn't had a genuine movement since Grunge in the early 1990s. American Idol is not credible music and does everything it can to convince people that music is about appearances over sound. I only watched American Idol when someone else was watching, but I made it a point to never actually watch the contestants singing. I wanted to LISTEN to them because that's what music is all about...LISTENING. It's sad that because of Adele's weight, she must therefore be talented...perhaps way more so than most female singers you've heard as of late. It's pleasing to know that no agency probably wanted to give her a recording contract and yet were so overwhelmed by her raw talent that they had no choice. I can only hope Adele's future work does not disappoint.
"Rolling in the Deep" by Adele
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