Well, that didn’t take long.
The inevitable Adele backlash has arrived less than two weeks after the English songstress initiated her messianic return with the release of her first single, “Hello.”
Tom Waits fans claim that “Hello,” now the fastest-selling digital record ever, is a derivation of the 1973 Tom Waits song “Martha.”
Unlike D.R.A.M.’s issue with Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” Waits fans aren’t piqued about the melody. They think Adele pinched Waits’s lyrics. Both songs are about reaching out to lost lovers through the telephone.
So what is the net result of this? Tom Waits’s fandom reveals itself to be just as self-serious as we suspected it was. The first few bars of “Hello” are also reminiscent of Lionel Richie’s “Hello.”
If you just want to be a music grinch, you’re better off referencing Blur/Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn, who worked with Adele on “25” and called her “middle of the road” in an interview with The Sun.
“Adele asked me to work with her and I took the time out for her,” Albarn said. “And I’m not a producer, so … I don’t know what is happening really. Will she use any of the stuff? I don’t think so. Let’s wait and see. The thing is, she’s very insecure. And she doesn’t need to be, she’s still so young.”
Adele responded in a Rolling Stone profile, out Tuesday.
“It ended up being one of those ‘don’t meet your idol’ moments,” she told the magazine. “And the saddest thing was that I was such a big Blur fan growing up. But it was sad, and I regret hanging out with him.”
As Albarn predicted, Adele declined to use anything from their failed attempt at a collaboration. “None of it was right. None of it suited my record. He said I was insecure, when I’m the least-insecure person I know. I was asking his opinion about my fears, about coming back with a child involved — because he has a child — and then he calls me insecure?”
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