REVOLVER : THE CHINESE concept of yin and yang refers to how complementary opposites interact within a greater whole as part of a dynamic system. Key to the idea is how opposites only exist in relation to each other.
Even though it’s only May, we can safely say that the biggest music story of this year is the ongoing yin and yang narrative unfolding between two music giants. In some ways it’s a battle for the very heart and soul of what music has now come to represent.
In one corner is the airbrushed, haute couture, post-modern figure that is Lady Gaga. Staring balefully at her from the other corner in a “think you’re tough enough” manner is the cider-swilling, size- 16 Adele.
Look beyond the Gaga hyperbole and incessant Twitter-led white noise and you’ll find there’s only one real winner here. Gaga might give “good front cover”, but Adele, the 23-year-old from Tottenham (the daughter of an unmarried teenage mother) has not just broken all sorts of sales records that have stood since the days of The Beatles: the figures show that she has also, in the UK and Ireland at least, kept the benighted music industry ticking over.
Remove the sales figures this year for Adele’s 19 and 21 and UK and Irish album sales are down by 8.7 per cent compared to last year. Once you factor in all of Adele’s sales, the sector is actually up 1.5 per cent. This is believed to be the first time that one musical act has singled-handedly kept the industry afloat and in profit.
However, Adele’s influence runs deeper. It’s not just that she sings without Auto-Tune (rare among today’s female big-hitters). And it’s not just that she takes her musical reference points from true greats such as Dusty Springfield and doesn’t just get in some Swedish dance-pop hit- maker to write her material for her.
And place Adele beside the Rihannas, Britneys and Beyoncés, and you’ll see a young woman who doesn’t do soft porn-style videos, doesn’t look like she’s starved herself to near death, and views pelvic flicks as somewhat degrading and tacky.
Describing herself as “a normal size 16, happy and healthy” is perhaps the most radical statement you’ll hear from a female music star. “I wouldn’t encourage anyone to be unhealthy overweight,” she says, “just as much as I wouldn’t encourage a f***in’ Ralph Lauren model to suck ice when she feels like fainting.”
Despite being offered mega- money to headline the summer’s biggest music festivals, Adele says she’s turned them down “so I can sit in Brockwell Park drinking cider with my friends”. There’s also a professional consideration: she’s savvy enough to know that her music is “too slow” for an up-for-it festival crowd.
Using the same logic – and citing her disapproval of solo acts performing in enormodomes – Adele has also declined an offer of three nights at London’s 02 arena. Such decisions drive the people around her insane, but the singer is adamant: “You think I’m going to play a f***in’ arena? Are you out of your mind? I’d rather play 12 years at the Barfly than one night at the 02.”
And don’t be expecting any endorsements or tie-ins from this year’s biggest selling artist. “I think it’s shameful when you sell out,” she says. “It depends what kind of artist you want to be, but I don’t want my name anywhere near another brand. I don’t want to be tainted or haunted.”
A healthy, enormously talented young woman who won't sell out or rip off her fans. How much more of a role model for today's Heat-magazine-polluted, X Factor- enslaved youth do you want?
Mixed Bag
** Liam Gallagher is getting Johnny Depp in to play the famous Beatles publicist Derek Taylor in his film adaptation of Richard DiLello's brilliant book, The Longest Cocktail Party: An Insider's Diary of The Beatles.
** Naughty iTunes. For all its “anti-illegal download” stance, it is alleged that iTunes was responsible for the accidental leak of the new Bon Iver album a month before release. Apparently the site only meant to put up a single, but up went the whole album instead. That will soften its cough.
