Adele - Heiress Led Zeppelin And Pink Floyd

The whole of 2011 was amazed by the British invasion of the American music market, which had no analogues in the last 30 years. The event is especially surprising, as the lack of interest of the superpower to the products of show business, produced outside its own territory, is widely known. After the collapse of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, Britain could not offer anything so original, anything that fell into the sight of the American listener, enjoyed a short-term and unstable interest. Spice Girls, Oasis, Radiohead, Coldplay, Amy Winehouse flashed and went out, Kylie Minogue flashed a couple of times, that's all that Britain remembered in three decades. For some inexplicable reason, U2 has achieved a little more, muffling the same melody for a quarter of a century, but this is also the past. The international of housewives all over the world has risen to the heights of the glory of Susan Boyle, but here the effect is sociological rather than musical. Robby Williams, revered by us as a new pop king, did not even try to get on the American market.
The fingers of two hands are enough to count the American stars are not from America (Canada).
And now, the main American sensation of 2011 was the singer Adel with the album "21". For a whole year the disc did not go below the fifth place, basically staying on the first-second position, three singles topped the song chart. Judging by the dynamics, getting into the Book of Records for the duration of the album stay on the tops of Billboard is not far off. The prematurely dead media market will not allow the singer to compete in terms of sales with Michael Jackson and other record holders, but after the final Internet victory in the distribution of music, no one has achieved such success (6 platinum nominations according to the latest RIAA data, and this is not the limit).
After receiving 6 Grammy prizes in top nominations, it was not possible to speak out. What is the reason for this mega-success? What musical breakthroughs did the young Briton, what new spheres did she open?
In my opinion, the success is completely undeserved, although not accidental. Outstanding vocal or compositional talents, the singer obviously does not have a bright appearance. But - she was lucky to be at the intersection of several trends. She did not become an obvious embodiment of any of them, but all together put her exactly at the forefront.

Adele - the recipe for success

Rihanna, Katy Perry and Britney are followers of Sabrina and Sandra

The first is the obvious Europeanization of American tastes. Until now, the mechanism of the process has not been understood, but r'n'b died, the stars of this direction were converted into house and techno (Usher, Snoop Doog and others sing duets with European DJs, original ones, not mixes). Top-notch singers (Katy Perry, Britney) suspiciously resemble the continental disco stars of the 80's, Rihanna generally uses the samples of the Moldovan band O-zone. You can say that the American market was morally ready for a hyper-breakthrough of a European performer, and without waiting for anything more interesting, the whole strength of the trend was directed at a fat Englishwoman.
In addition, periodically a mass listener will experience an incomprehensible craving for boring, boring music. The previous embodiment of such an unhealthy interest is the singer Nora Jones. Ah, Nora, where are you? Giant sales, a bunch of Grammy, while not a single memorable tune, and deserved oblivion in the end. A decade passed - and the collective unconscious again demanded such an idol. I am sure, not far off, and a complete loss of interest in the current triumph. I do not believe that in 10 years someone will remember a couple of melodies from the repertoire of Adele.
And maybe, in the previous couple of years, Gaga has over-excited the public and urgently needed something soothing, lulling.
Finally, Adele was a follower of such different, but equally successful in America performers, like Amy Winehouse and Susan Boyle. On the one hand, the heiress of the retro soul culture with a hoarse voice, on the other hand, the unassuming asexual fat woman (modest, in contrast to Alla Pugacheva), statically deriving her roulades, the singer became her own for completely different audiences.
As a result, a sudden American interest in the European depressive whining in a retro style led the singer from the target niche to the rank of world stars. How long? I think that for a little while. However, Madonna also predicted an early oblivion thirty years ago, however, for other reasons.