Deep Album Cuts Vol. 267: Adele
Four albums is kind of the threshold where I think an artist has enough of a catalog to do one of these little 80-minute playlists, so I'd been thinking that after Adele finally released 30 I'd do one for her. But I also wanted to see what songs from that album were released as singles before I presumed them 'deep cuts.' Each of her previous albums had 4 or 5 singles, which isn't really a lot for the biggest selling artist of the last 15 years, they never did the Janet Jackson 7-single campaign thing. But oddly it feels like they just stopped at two singles for 30, it's been 7 months since the "Oh My God" video was released. Still, I avoided some of the more likely future 30 singles on this playlist just to be safe.
Adele deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Don't You Remember
2. Sweetest Devotion
3. Melt My Heart To Stone
4. To Be Loved
5. River Lea
6. He Won't Go
7. Right As Rain
8. Cry Your Heart Out
9. One And Only
10. Daydreamer
11. All Night Parking (Interlude) with Erroll Garner
12. Remedy
13. I'll Be Waiting
14. All I Ask
15. Woman Like Me
16. Crazy For You
17. I Miss You
18. Take It All
Tracks 3, 7, 10 and 16 from 19 (2008)
Tracks 1, 6, 9, 13 and 18 from 21 (2011)
Tracks 2, 5, 12, 14 and 17 from 25 (2015)
Tracks 4, 8, 11 and 15 from 30 (2021)
I think "Sweetest Devotion" is Adele's deep cut, it's a perfect closer for 25 but I wanted to put it right near the front here. It's interesting that some her biggest collaborators worked on songs that weren't singles. For instance, Bruno Mars co-wrote "All I Ask," and Rick Rubin produced "He Won't Go," "Don't You Remember," and "One And Only." The latter two of those were co-written by Dan Wilson of Semisonic, who I've always held in pretty high regard as a songwriter and it's been cool see him experience this career revival writing "Someone Like You" and other hits for big name pop artists.
Obviously Adele's voice is the star attraction of these records and it feels like everything is set up pretty well to frame that, although sometimes you get memorable instrumental performances like drummer Chris Dave on "One And Only" and "Cry Your Heart Out." "To Be Loved" from the latest album stands out to be as one of her most impressive vocals. And I love the end of "Woman Like Me" where she gives the band a quick 'one more time' cue before the last refrain, there's some very old-fashioned musicians-in-a-room atmosphere on the best of these songs. And I like hearing her uses her voice a little differently on some of these songs, like the kind of squeaky emphatic high notes on "Melt My Heart To Stone." That's one of the 3 songs she wrote with "Chasing Pavements" co-writer Eg White, who's a big hitmaker in the UK but hasn't written much that's well known in America outside of Adele.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 09, 2022 at 10:25 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Post a Comment