Adele - The Discography - The Audiophile Reviews

[audioguy3107]

So keeping with the somewhat alphabetical order of my idea, we'll switch gears from AC/DC to a more modern but probably more compressed recording of Adele's debut album 19. She has a huge following, but how does the Redbook CD stack up? I haven't listened to this album in a pretty long time, so we'll see if there are any good wow moments on this album.

Adele - 19, 2008, XL Recordings
Review version - 2008 Redbook CD mixed at MusicBox in 2007




From Wikipedia: 19 is the debut studio album by English singer-songwriter Adele. It was first released on 28 January 2008, through XL Recordings. Following Adele's graduation from the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in May 2006, she began publishing songs and recorded a three-song demo for a class project and gave it to a friend. The friend posted the demo on Myspace, where it became very successful and led to interest from XL Recordings. This led to Adele signing a recording contract with the label and providing vocals for Jack Peñate, during this session for Peñate's song she met producer Jim Abbiss, who would go on to produce the majority of her debut album.

1. Daydreamer - Nothing too interesting on the first track, it's a sparse recording with her vocals dead center along with an acoustic guitar, sounds OK...the vocals are fairly flat but fairly smooth, not a whole lot of depth on this song...wonder if the record would be better. Pretty decent example of simple acoustic guitar though. Probably wouldn't use this as a demo track though.

2. Best For Last [DEMO] - This is actually a fairly decent demo for the lower registers of the guitar, you can clearly hear the bass line directly behind her voice on this track along with the speaking of guitar stings very very clear. Not a whole lot of space around the music but not bad for a fairly compressed CD.

3. Chasing Pavements - Her most popular song on the album, the one that won her the Grammy Award that year. Unfortunately her voice is a bit harsher on this track than the last two. Bass is much stronger but that's about it....good song but don't like the mix, it's just too damn loud which is a shame.

4. Cold Shoulder - Best bass so far on this disc, the RELs are working here but not good enough to show off. The mix is still pretty messy with some interesting sound effects but too loud for me.

5. Crazy For You - Adele's voice is much nicer on this song, probably not good enough to use for a female vocal demo, but in the context of this album, it's a bit better than the last 3 tracks......the higher registers come through a little cleaner. This would be the best vocal demo so far on this album.

6. Melt My Heart To Stone [DEMO] - Here's the BASS. Her vocals are back to being somewhat noisy and dry, but the bass hits on this song.......I actually got some room pressurization when the first bass note hits. For an Adele song, this is a pretty decent subwoofer demo, the vocals are still awful, but if you can get past that, listen to how deep the bass goes on this track.....feel like it reaches at least into the mid 30 Hz regions. Not bad, this should show you what your subs are capable of on a song like this.

9. Make You Feel My Love [DEMO] - This is probably the most pleasing to the ears song on the album, definitely so far.....a cover of Bob Dylan's, it's Adele's voice, a natural sounding piano with some strings coming in towards the end of the song......It's too bad the piano doesn't stand out more on this song since it's pretty smooth. This would be the most audiophile worthy track on this album if her vocals weren't so dry and threadbare. If you want to hear Adele along with a piano, this is the one to turn up and enjoy. I don't think anything truly stands out yet for this album it's the most pleasing song to listen to so try turning it up and enjoy it for what it is.

11. Tired - I'm tired of her voice being distorted on this album....I could only imagine what Analogue Productions could do with this record if they could have it from start to finish.

This recording kind of sounds like you may expect a late 2000s digital recording to sound.....it's a shame since it's a really good debut album. Adele's voice is what she's known for so it's too bad that an album like this couldn't get the audiophile treatment, I bet it would sound stunning. There's really not a whole lot of moments to show off here, the bass on track 6 is good but not really a whole lot of truly special sound quality moments on here. If you were going to play one song off this album to show off I'd say Make You Feel My Love is it, but even that won't blow you away but it'a a nice listen.

Audiophile Rating: 4/10 (overall sonics)
Demo Rating: 25% 3/12 (number of cool demo tracks/tracks on album)

[Robc33]

It is a shame, my wife and I really enjoy her music. Just not on my primary system.

[doggiehowser]

I’ve found Adele’s best songs tend to be her cover versions. Lovesong from her other album was just as enjoyable.

But recording quality leaves a lot to be desired from the studio albums.

Best version - the live recording on Blu-ray. A lot less compressed. Downside - she whinges a lot about her exes before each song.

The CD version of the Live Concert cuts a lot of that chatter out but it isn’t in hires

[crwilli]

It is a shame. Her music can be downright harsh/shrill at the edges.

I assume her ‘team’ have decided she is a radio pop star and thus they need to perpetuate and win the loudness wars?

[audioguy3107]

Originally Posted by crwilli

It is a shame. Her music can be downright harsh/shrill at the edges.

I assume her ‘team’ have decided she is a radio pop star and thus they need to perpetuate and win the loudness wars?

I guess it’s not much different than the other artists these days.....it’s pretty tough to find a mass produced artist if you will with stellar sound quality. Most likely not, but I wonder if the vinyl album would be any better with this record.

- Buck

[Weirdcuba]

Sounds great in the car with my daughter having fun. not so much on the big rig at home.

[Weirdcuba]

And, the big rig is on vinyl.