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Album Description
US only 2 CD edition includes a bonus disc with five live tracks,Right as Rain [Live], Melt My Heart to Stone [Live], My Same [Live], That's It, I Quit, I'm Moving On [Live] and Chasing Pavements [Live] . 19 is the debut album from the singer/songwriter. Citing her influences as diverse as Etta James, Jill Scott, Bjork, Dusty Springfield, Billy Bragg, Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley, The Cure and Peggy Lee, Adele is a truly unique new artist. With her mix up of R&B and Soul served up with a healthy dash of feisty London attitude, she spins beautiful dark stories of loves won and lost and sometimes just daydreamed about. XL.

Customer Reviews: Read 63 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

The Amy Winehouse comparisons are as misleading as they are predictable. August 12, 2008
25 out of 27 found this review helpful

There's no disputing the gifts of Tottenham-born Adele Adkins, the latest BRIT graduate to stroll into the charts. As we know from her single Chasing Pavements, she has a sensational voice: rich, robust, voluptuously bluesy.
Is she the new Amy Winehouse?
It is not quite right.
True, both are white girls who owe a debt to black soul, both sing with a London twang ("I don't get nuffin' back," rasps Adele on the punchy "Tired"), and both are in pieces because their man done them wrong.
Eleven of the 12 songs on Adele's debut are about heartbreak (the other, "Hometown Glory", is about how cool London is).
Adele, though, is easier to listen to than Winehouse. Her music is cleaner, less menacing: there's the bright acoustic-guitar chime of "Daydreamer", the lullaby twinkle of "First Love", the plush strings of "Melt My Heart to Stone".
Her mesmerising singing tone, honest lyrics, jazz and soul influences, and brash Cockney speaking accent, echo Amy. But Adele's delivery is far more delicate.
Lyrically she's simpler, too, occasionally even soppy: "When there's no one there to dry your tears, I could hold you for a million years," she gushes on "Make You Feel My Love".
Where Back to Black sounded emotionally and musically true, almost everything on the covers-all-bases "19" sounds like it was absorbed by osmosis at the London's BRIT School for Performing Arts (where she, Katie Melua, Leona Lewis, Kate Nash and Winehouse are alumni).
Some will find Adele rigidly old-fashioned. Her influences (Etta James, Dusty Springfield, Billie Holiday) are from another age.
A cursory listen may lead you to conclude that Adele has a voice way in excess of her years. In terms of technical ability, that's true.
The instrumentation seems designed to usher you to that conclusion: a dash of jazz bass, the odd string arrangement that seems to take its cue from Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy".
"Sumptuous one moment then fragile the next, this is an album dripping with beauty and class.
Adele's voice caresses and inspires, and is superbly supplemented by piano, guitar and glorious orchestration".(Lee Davis)
All that we can say is that she sings with unabashed passion about a kind of pain we can all recognise, and that sort of thing doesn't date.

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Spirit
Always
Rockferry

4 out of 5 stars

Amy can sleep easy... February 11, 2008
20 out of 32 found this review helpful

With declining album sales, and with the smashing success of Amy Winehouse (millions sold, 5 Grammys won), it seems every British record label has been on a major quest to discover the next Amy Winehouse as a solution to their woes. One of the names being touted for that post is Adele Atkins, who had every major and minor music critic jostling to outdo each other in lavishing her with plaudits. Heck, she's even getting a Brit award later this month, and all this before she had even released her debut.

While most girls her age grew up listening to Britney, Spice Girls and Kylie, Adele was listening to some of those too, as well as to Eva Cassidy, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, and some Amy also. She does have a rich, smoky world-weary voice to boot. Listening to "19" (titled after her age), I didn't find it as immediate as Amy's CD was, but it is a grower and there is an attempt at sonic variety. The album was produced by Mark Ronson (who also did Amy's, and just won a Grammy for producer of the year).

I guess in an attempt to deflect too much comparison, Adele's disc isn't restricted only to smoky retro jazz/blues sounds in the 12 tracks. In fact, opening cut "Daydreams" is an acoustic ballad as are "Best for last" (though this has jazzy phrasings), and the sparse bluesy "Crazy for you".

Lead-off single (and #2 UK hit) "Chasing pavements" is a lush, sweeping jazzy power ballad. Similar is closing cut the stirring "Hometown glory" (an ode to Tottenham), a stunning piano/string ballad and my favourite. "Melt my heart to stone" is a downbeat blues tinged string filled ballad, while "First love" is lullaby-like, complete with tinkling bells. "Make you feel my love" is a sombre (almost hymnal) piano ballad with weeping cello/violin.

Upping the tempo are "Cold shoulder" with skittery beats, "Right as rain" (Jazzy and bluesy, very Amy Winehouse), the catchy "My same" (with a snappy jazz/pop feel, I love it!) and "Tired" (lovely change in tempo midway).

The new Amy Winehouse? Not quite (one listen to "Back to black" puts paid to any such notion), but she should be able to carve a niche for herself in a field that promises to get even more crowded as the year progresses (with people like Duffy coming). Not bad at all for a 19 year old.

4 out of 5 stars

An accomplished piece of work March 6, 2008
19 out of 44 found this review helpful

Singer & songwriter Adele's debut album is an accomplished piece of work. I've hinted at it one of my other reviews but I'll be clearer here: I'm particularly impressed that a singer so young (she's only 19, hence the album's title) would decide to look back to the great singers of yesteryears for inspiration as opposed to slavishly following the made-for-radio trends of her contemporaries. I know not everyone will agree with me but as of right now, the past is where the best music ever made is to be found.

It's my kind of music in many respects, with lots of real live instruments and lots of strings. Adele shows her confidence in the quality and strength of her voice with sparse instrumentation on a number of tracks. On the album opener "Daydreamer" for instance, the only instrument is the guitar she plays as she sings. On the next track along, "Best For Last", she does something really fresh and different, singing while she plays solo bass for the most part. There are twelve songs in total, nine of these are very ably produced by Jim Abbiss, with two, including brilliant lead single "Chasing Pavements", produced by Eg White and one produced by man of the moment Mark Ronson, (with mixed results, in my opinion).

It's all very well put together and well-intended but something's missing. It took me a while to figure out what it is and it's that old intellectual vs emotional response thing again. Intellectually, I totally appreciate, respect and even like the authenticity and artistry of what Ms Atkins has achieved here. I think she could have a stellar career ahead of her and I particularly admire the way she's (so far) refusing to conform to the stereotypes of what a female music artiste is supposed to look like. She says she's her own individual and I believe her.

Emotionally however, she just doesn't touch me. Or more accurately, her voice doesn't. Perhaps it's a cruel or unfair comparison, but while Amy Winehouse has the ability to either make me beam from ear to ear or reduce me to floods of tears - depending on the song of course - with this particular lady, I feel nothing. I hear good music; very interesting music actually, but I feel absolutely nothing and can't honestly claim to enjoy listening to it. "Chasing Pavements" and the album closer, the piano-led, spiritual sounding "Hometown Glory" (my two favourite tracks on here) both came pretty close but not quite close enough. 3.5 stars.

5 out of 5 stars

Awesome Debut by Adele June 25, 2008
16 out of 27 found this review helpful

"19" proves that the latest invasion of female British singers are definitely going back to the 60's for their inspiration, and they are doing an exceptionally good job of bringing that infectious R&B/soul sound back. From Amy Winehouse to Duffy to young Adele, these ladies are harking back to everyone from Diana Ross to Dusty Springfield to even Peggy Lee. Winehouse and Duffy have already set the bar very high, and Adele comed right behind them and raises the the bar for the next in line.

Infused at times with her folksy guitar playing, Adele has a voice that already sounds like a finely used instrument. Husky and strong at times, but sweet and mournfully tender at times, she showcases it at her best on songs like "Chasing Pavement," "Right As Rain," "Make You Feel You love," and others.

Adele is another rich British talent, and one hopes that she keeps herself together with all the challenges that fame and huge talent bring.

3 out of 5 stars

Not bad but.. Not is the same league as Amy June 9, 2008
11 out of 15 found this review helpful

The songs are catchy and I liked the album, taken on its own it is very good.

Unfortunately her style is similar enough to force the comparison to Amy Whinehouse. And compared to Back to Black or Frank, 19 simply doesn't measure up.

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