Adele: 'Cold Shoulder'

Released on Monday, Apr 21 2008

Published Wednesday, Mar 26 2008, 21:19 GMT | By Alex Fletcher | 4 comments

'19' LP

Adele's gone through more in the last three months than most scraggy indie bands experience in their entire careers. Back in January, with her first proper single, 'Chasing Pavements', climbing the charts, the soul siren found herself surfing a wave of unprecedented hype. However, the ever-cynical British public soon smelt the industry-fed rat behind her meteoric rise to fame, so when her debut LP, 19, proved merely alright, the backlash kicked in and fickle sorts across the country claimed they'd always preferred Duffy anyway.

The Brit School grad's new single, 'Cold Shoulder', should hopefully restore some order to her topsy-turvy career trajectory. Making full use of her crisp, soulful vocals, it's an impressive combination of silky funk and insistent trip-hop beats. Mark Ronson's production is at its tack-sharp best, while former Jamiroquai star Stuart Zender is on top form on bass duties. While this won't be enough to appease Adele's sternest critics, it at least goes some way to explaining why she attracted so much attention in the first place.

> Click here for our review of Adele's 19 album

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4 Comments

Your Responses

Jo, UK, on May 30th, 2008
It's alright, however it hardly reaches the dizzying heights of Chasing Pavements. A stunning voice needs better songs.

JP, London, on April 19th, 2008
Take a chill pill Andy and when you've come back down read this and know that you are wrong. Adele's album isn't a classic by any standards. It's all over the place. It's an album of wasted chances because she has a decent voice, oh well. Better luck next time Adele. Oh yeah, this song is average and that's a fact.

Andy, Hull, on April 1st, 2008
Who of us really have the right to dismiss a person on the grounds that they had a little help rising to the highest heights? If i were able to get a professional to come in and steer me in the right direction with regard my job I for one would jump at the opportunity and i doubt few people would pass it up! At the end of the day we need to judge artists on their abilities, and this girl has talent in an abundance! Her voice is mellow and lends itself to this kick back style, though with a little help from those in the know she has cleverly avoided becoming another Katie Melua or Nora Jones destined only to release albums that debut highly then fade in obscurity, with little or no hope of shifting singles. This song is "REAL" music, a song that will sit in peoples collections for a lifetime and still sound as fresh when they play it to their chilren in years to come.

BB, Huddersfield, on March 31st, 2008
I heard this song on the music channel the other day and I much prefer it to chasing pavements. Her voice is excellent:) !