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Music

21st Century Icons Are British Women

British singers Adele and Amy Winehouse, whose monolithic successes and sorrows enraptured the world, are icons that pounded the decade or so of humdrum that went before them.

There are just a score of rock icons that still adorn magazine covers and hoodies sold on tourist market stalls. Hendrix, Bowie, Cobain, Curtis, Morrissey have been idolised to the point of veneration. They all share a similar story. They are all broken in some way, they all struggled with their own success, and most obviously, they are all men.

But in the last decade, a new type of singer songwriter has curtsied on to the scene, mentioned in the same bouquets and breaths as international stars like Aretha Franklin and Edith Piaf. If popular culture is a kneejerk reaction to the movements and trends that immediately preceded it then British singers Adele and Amy Winehouse, whose monolithic successes and sorrows enraptured the world, are icons that pounded the decade or so of humdrum that went before them.

They both evoke bygone velveteen eras, their voices more in keeping with ornate concert halls than floodlit stadiums. Adele’s rise is in contrast to the eyes and teeth Red Coats that gormlessly beam on talent TV. You only have to watch some of her awards acceptance speeches (and, as she won six Grammys in a year, there are plenty to choose from) to see why she resonates with the public. She has a modest, self-aggrandising charm, false eyelashes and a filfy filfy cackle that makes anyone watching want to buy her a congratulatory pint afterwards. Adele’s tour bus goes through the motorway tolls and stops at a Welcome Break midway, just like we do. While her vocals soar, her personality is the definition of understatement. Her uniform of classy black dresses are white flags to the desperate one-upmanship of fad-obsessed singers whose overstyled images are increasingly easy to shrug off.

In some ways Amy has more in common with the broken icons of the 20th century than Adele’s quiet life in the country lifestyle. Before her premature death in 2011, Amy was unfortunately known as much for drinking and drug-taking till daylight struck Camden as her stunning soulful music. But in other ways, Adele and Amy share a lot. Both are down to earth, British girls who’ve found comfort in American soul music. Amy managed to avoid the retro expiry date of fellow artists such as Duffy because of the incorporation of the gravelly sneer of hip-hop, her transparent attitude to the press, and the buoyant instrumentation and production Back To Black, provided by the Dap Kings and Mark Ronson.

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