How Did Adele Get So Popular?

I've always found pop music to not only be the worst form of popular entertainment but also the most predictable.  This is because good pop music is rarer than winning a fist fight with a bear.  A musician needs to be like a drunk Russian to have any luck recording a good song.  The problem is that there just are not that many drunk Russian musicians (I assume) so most of pop music is populated with buzzed Spaniards, who are not known for being masters of Tai-Grizzly-Fu.  However, all it takes is just one of the buzzed Spaniards to get on a hot streak and the market is then flooded with mediocre bear fighters.  Or, pop songs.  I'm getting my analogies confused again.

 A voice like this kills hundreds of bears a year.

 
My point is, my best guess as to why so much of pop music is predictable garbage revolves around people who are not good at what they do.  I think one mediocre song got inexplicably popular years ago, so every other musician is ordered by their record labels to copy it until artificial intelligence trumps human creativity with scientific creativity, the most science-y of art.   If the modern pop charts are to be believed, that original mediocre song was a dance song about dancing, sex, or sex dancing.  People must have decided this was a good thing and rewarded the record labels by stealing buying the shitty music.

Since pop music is dominated by dance songs, I find it interesting when an artist or band breaks away from the predictable dance party circle jerk.  The artist of the year for 2011 was Adele, a woman who actually sings well, has producers who create good music, and doesn't look like a jailbait skank with daddy issues.  She became artist of the year despite her music not making anybody want to grind their boner on a sexual harassment lawsuit while drinking a cocktail in a test tube with a deceptive amount of Bacardi 151 in it.   And no, Lil Wayne did not do a guest verse on any of her songs considering every song with Lil Wayne in it is in the top 40 except for his own.

So how did Adele get so popular? 

Adele is not all that original.  Florence and the Machine has a similar, albeit more drum heavy, sound and comes from the UK just like Adele and every other musician ever.  Despite this, that band did not get nearly as popular as Adele but that might be because the lead singer looks like a clown who works in a medical marijuana store.  Then again, it's possibly because the populace has been trained to rage against the machine, not sing and dance with it.

 Maybe it's a metaphorical machine just like her metaphorical band.

Adele is also a great singer, but being a great singer usually means nothing at the altar of autotune unless, of course, your Frank fucking Sinatra.  Even Mariah Carey, the living doll with an eight octave range, hasn't had a hit in years.  Although, to be fair, all of her songs now are about friendship and puppies because her mind never progressed past that of a 12 year old.  She probably spends her days off making scrap books with pictures of sunflowers and wedding cakes.

Adele can't be popular because of her looks either.  She looks like an average American woman that I, for one, would still bone.  I wonder if the director was not sure what to do in the "Rolling in the Deep" music video since she does not look like a stripper and didn't feel right filming a video that doesn't take place in a club.  She is sitting down in the entire video either because if your not dancing, you should obviously be sitting down, or because the hot shot director has never seen a women of average weight and thought that she might break an ankle if she stands up for too long.

The director - "I need like, 200 glasses of water.  Trust me, it's symbolic." 

The "Someone Like You" video is in black and white because the song is sad and colors are only for happy people.  Wait, black and white?  Why that instantly makes this artistic!  Pretentious director level up!  Well actually, this is the music industry and not the movie industry so the pathetic, more likely reason it's in black and white is because black is slimming.

Somewhere, a film school professor just came.

There is the possibility that Adele got popular because of nothing to do with her music.  There is always the more important power of having connections.  The current number one song in the nation is LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It", a song that is so godawful, that I would rather listen to a raving lunatic on a street corner with a rotting raccoon carcass strapped to his head scream about pasta recipes. But the only reason that song is even known is because those guys happen to be the son and grandson of Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records.  Another example is Hot Chelle Rae, a band who I think used to be the freecreditreport.com band.  Their guitarist is the son of a country songwriter and the brother of a Glee cast member, which explains not only their popularity, but the reason why my penis tries to recede into my body every time I hear their music.  Adele?  No such connections although she did go to a very selective arts school.  The same one that created, DUN DUN DUNNNNN, Amy Winehouse.  So obviously...uh, wait.  That might actually be a connection that is detrimental to success.

I would almost, almost, accept the simple fact that Adele makes good music as reason enough for being so popular.  But that logically would conclude that all good music should be just as popular and oh I get it.  I get it now.  I'm trying to apply logic, to POP MUSIC because I'm a fucking idiot.  Pop music is where Logic goes to get spanked by a transvestite in a Richard Nixon mask.  Pop music is the dirty little secret that logic keeps just so it can take a vacation and forward all it's phone calls to Aristotle.

Obviously, the answer to why Adele is so popular is blind luck.  Her popularity is what pop music isn't, unpredictable.  Although, I like the fact she is popular, even though it makes no sense.  I like knowing good music can still get popular.  It's also nice to know that a drunk Russian can still make it to the top 40 in bear fighting.


Disclaimer:  This article is satirical and opinionated.   And if you are looking for a career in pop music, please wear protection.  Bear claws are sharp.

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