Powerful voice, emotional lyrics propel Adele to top of charts

Death. Taxes. "Rollin' in the Deep."

There are some things that just can't be escaped.

And this year, the aforementioned nouveau soul smash is chief among them.

The massive, omnipresent hit has propelled Brit singer Adele to vertigo-inducing heights.

The album that the song is culled from, Adele's sophomore effort, "21," has spent 12 weeks atop the charts and is the biggest record of the year thus far, having sold more than 8 million copies worldwide.

But why has Adele garnered so much love of late?

With the 23-year-old hitting Vegas this Saturday, let's take a look at some of the main reasons why:

Her Voice

Her heart is a fickle thing, and so heavy at times, it seems like it was poured from concrete.

Adele's voice conveys all this passion, pathos and petulance in grand, unguarded fashion, a booming cannon of longing.

Her tunes are almost uncomfortably candid at times, with lyric sheets that could double as the pages of a diary, the kind that's normally kept hidden from prying eyes safely beneath a mattress.

"When was the last time you thought of me? Or have you completely erased me from your memory?" she asks a former flame on "Don't You Remember," sounding so wounded, it's as if her words were serrated, scarring her from the inside out as she utters them.

Her vocals are akin to her trampolinelike emotions, up and down and all over the place.

At times, Adele sings in a bawdy, head-bobbing howl reminiscent of the badass bluster of The Gossip's Beth Ditto.

At others, she sounds as fragile as she does fierce.

Either way, it always seems completely in the moment, like she's never holding anything back.

Basically, Adele's singing is as unadorned as her emoting.

Her Sound

Contemporary pop music might as well come with one of those "Intel inside" insignias branded on its arse, such is its computerized, wholly digital feel. And it's not just the ubiquitous Auto-tuned vocals, which sound like a singer gargling microchips, but it's the synthetic, bloodless throb of so much of modern pop. In a way, the production values mirror the aesthetics of many of the starlets who sing over them -- the Britneys, Christinas and Beyonces -- airbrushed beauties whose presentation is flawless, though it often feels only skin deep.

But Adele's records are much more warm and lived in.

Sure, "21" is a big sounding album with its share of symphonic flourishes -- the gospel choir backing vocals of "Take it All" and "One and Only"; the sampled strings on "Turning Tables" and "Don't You Remember"; but all told, it's a more stripped-down, immediate record that sounds every bit as intimate as its subject matter.

Her Look

Remember back when many pop stars used to look like people who probably had to sweet-talk a relative in order to land a date for prom?

Darryl Hall and John Oates, Huey Lewis, Pat Benatar, Chrissie Hynde, that bug-eyed dude from Men at Work -- these people could only be classified as hotties if they were engulfed in flames.

But you know what? It didn't matter if none of them was worthy of a swimsuit spread in Cosmo or GQ 'cause that wasn't why anyone bought their records. People just liked their tunes.

Imagine that.

But nowadays, it's damn hard for anyone, especially a woman, who doesn't conform to the accepted notions of beauty to score a record deal, no matter how talented he or she might be.

But Adele has broken that moldy mold.

She's a plus-sized lady, pretty to be sure, but in her own way.

So, go ahead and leave the bikinis to Katy Perry.

And the singing to Adele.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.