Adele week began, with a big Observer magazine feature …
We may as well get the Adele stuff out of the way first. Whether you enjoy her music or not, she wields a lot of power in the industry because people continue to buy her albums in ridiculous numbers. She put her journalist hat on for the Observer last Sunday, guest-editing Observer Music Monthly magazine. There’s something oddly endearing and odd about her having a full-name byline page on the Guardian site. Reckon she’ll be updating her LinkedIn, along the lines of “Miss Adele Adkins, editor and musician”? Nah, probably not.
… Continued with a drip-feed of interview quotes …
As fan anticipation around her new album built, we were treated to a variety of quote snippets in the press. “Adele says she’s not a recluse”. “Adele says she didn’t let body images run her life”, etc. In some cultures I’ve heard this can be referred to as scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I’ll leave that judgment up to you.
… And ended with the release of her third album, 25
Finally. The album arrived. And it was a sprawling collection of jazz-fusion tracks, indebted to both calypso and Malian folk. I’m kidding: it was full of ballads about love and growing up and being Adele, obviously. As of Friday morning, the album wasn’t available to stream but is still predicted to sell more than 2m copies in the US during its first week of release.
Listening to Adele 25 like.... pic.twitter.com/IsiPxknVJr
— Brayden Huff (@BraydenHuff) November 20, 2015
Australia was invited to take part in Eurovision again
Aussie entrant Guy Sebastian must have made quite the impression on Eurovision audiences last year, because his home country’s been invited back. In 2016 the annual European celebration of cheese, sequins and fairly awful songwriting will open up its borders to Australia for the second time. Before any Australia-based fans get any wild ideas, unfortunately organisers said that even if Australia won, they wouldn’t be able to host in 2017. It is a bit of a trek for the other entrants, after all.
Miles Davis was voted the greatest ever jazz artist
The legendary trumpeter is the world’s top jazz artist – if one radio listeners’ poll is to be your point of reference for ranking all jazz artists since the beginning of time, of course. BBC and radio station Jazz FM’s list included many of the greats you’d expect, from Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington. Of course, there is no way to definitively rank musicians, but the list’s publication seems as good an excuse an any to revisit classic albums by the artists mentioned.
Benjamin Clementine won the Mercury prize
The singer-songwriter, who busked for years in Paris before landing a major label deal, beat out bookmakers’ favourite Jamie xx to win this year’s prize. Clementine gave a moving acceptance speech, dedicating his prize to the people in Paris killed by terrorists on Friday 13 November, in a spate of attacks. After the ceremony, Clementine said he plans to give some of his £20,000 prize money towards buying pianos in his north London borough of Edmonton. Read our recent interview with him, for more on his unusual story and quiet self-deprecation.
Carly Simon wrote You’re So Vain about Warren Beatty after all
I’m fairly sure we’d all guessed Beatty was the subject of Simon’s cheeky takedown single, but at least now it’s official. Kind of. Simon only went so far as to say Beatty’s the subject of the song’s second verse. At this point it’s unclear whether anyone’s still waiting desperately to know the other people behind the song – if so, make yourselves known. Surely you don’t want to wait another 43 years.
Jimmy Iovine apologised for making a generalisation about women
Apple Music’s Iovine perfected his backpedal this week. On a US chat show on Thursday he said that women aren’t good at discovering music, and could benefit from Apple Music playlists. “Girls are sitting around … talking about boys, right? Or complaining about boys,” he said, and apparently they don’t often excel at finding the right soundtrack with which to fail the real-life Bechdel test. I guess Iovine realised his statements could have been perceived as both patronising, sexist and, er, inaccurate, because he later apologised.
Eagles of Death Metal released a statement about the Paris attacks
Californian band Eagles of Death Metal were performing in one of the Paris locations targeted by terrorists on Friday 13 November, when the city suffered its second major attack this year. The band released a statement on Wednesday 18 November, addressing the friends, families and loved ones of those killed during the attack, and those affected more widely by the evening’s violence. Band merchandise manager Nick Alexander was killed during the shooting, as were Universal Music Group record label employees Thomas Ayad, Marie Mosser and Manu Perez.
UK fans ran a campaign to get Eagles of Death Metal to No 1
In solidarity with the band, a few fans started an online campaign to get the group’s cover of Duran Duran’s Save a Prayer to the top of the UK singles chart. Simon Le Bon then tweeted that he planned to donate Duran Duran’s share of royalties for writing the song to a cause deemed “useful, peaceful and uniting”.
RT this everywhere. Buy Eagles of Death Metal 'Save A Prayer' *NOW* to get the UK No.1 tomorrow #JeSuisParis 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/lqRhu6t1MM
— EODM For UK No.1 (@EODMforNo1) November 19, 2015
