Arts & Culture

TEST SPINS | Adele: ‘21’

By |

Hearing any Adele song, even one of her more recent ones, fills me with a particular sense of nostalgia. Her voice holds so many memories for me — singing along to “Someone Like You” with a friend in middle school like I had any idea what the lyrics meant; watching her, absolutely spellbound, at my first ever concert as she performed 25 and being shocked by the sheer number of curse words flying out of her mouth in between songs; spending an entire period in high school listening to 30 because my teacher could not accept that no one in the class had listened to it yet (it was released eight hours before class started). Despite the fact that her whole discography is able to draw such intense reminiscence from me, 21 has always stood out for some reason, and I chose to revisit this record to determine why. “Rolling in the Deep” is undoubtedly one of Adele’s most iconic and instantly identifiable songs. Her deep, thunderous voice makes this song all-consuming; the echo effect emphasizes the power of her voice, and her message, even more.

Adele

An April Fools Awards Show

By |

“The 58th Grammy Awards are getting ready to start NOW,” Bow Wow exclaimed, a full minute and a half earlier than he was supposed to. After beaming into the camera for a painful 20 seconds afterwards, he started bouncing around from Grammy attendee to Grammy attendee, instructing them not to be camera shy. After which, he incorrectly claimed that the show was starting two more times, “It’s going down! It’s happening! It’s about that time.

Arts & Culture

TEST SPIN: Adele — 25

By |

By JESSIE WEBER

Adele enthralls. Lyrically, her music stuns despite being easily accessible, wrapping itself around its audience; you’re convinced that she’s singing about your life whether it’s “Turning Tables” or “He Won’t Go.” Her band is masterful in its ability to capture a sometimes loose and rhythmic, sometimes intensely iconic sound that cradles her vocals perfectly. And you need no reminder that her voice is a blues and soul masterpiece that could cut melt a heart back from stone. 19 and 21, taken together, draw a portrait of a blossoming artist. “Daydreamer,” the opening song of her first album, is beautiful in a young and innocent kind of way.

Arts & Culture

Spinning Singles: Adele, “Hello”

By |

By ZHAO SHEN

“Hello?”

It’s the first lyric we’ve heard from Adele in over three years. Three years of listeners imploring her to release a new song, and now she’s finally here to answer us. The world’s response has been tremendous; “Hello” has amassed 100 million YouTube views in just five days, broken the U.S. record for first-week digital sales and sent Adele plunging straight back into the limelight. There’s one thing I can say for sure: The song is very much in alignment with her previous work. It’s a somewhat minimalistic yet extremely catchy track that emphasizes the many colors of the artist’s beautiful, smoky voice.