Adele–Rolling In The Deep

Released 29th November 2010
Billboard: #13
UK: #2

“Do you let your heart lead the way, or do you usually let your head make the decisions for you? Have you encountered situations whereby your mind told you one thing but your heart said otherwise?”
(extracted from http://www.great-inspirational-quotes.com/heart-quotes.html)

For me, I find that my brain and heart will both respond to a song. If they both approve of it, such as B.o.B’s Airplanes or Kanye’s All of the Lights – or if they both disapprove of it (there are way too many examples to list here), then it’s pretty straightforward; the former case will score well while the latter, poorly. However, there are situations where the head says one thing and the heart another. In most ‘dispute’ cases, the head says it’s bad or unimpressive while the heart loves it – Bruno Mars’ Grenade and Drake’s Forever are two I can think of – and these usually end up quite decent, too. Today’s song, however, is a special case. I, honestly, don’t really like this song.

In terms of vocal ability, Adele is certainly by no means lacking as she powerfully knocks through the notes of the chorus along with that backing choir – though sometimes I’m not sure I like my songs with that much power slammed into each syllable. My head can appreciate this – my heart is turned off. I’m made to recall Cee-Lo’s Fuck You but as far as I’m concerned, this is controlled power which on a head level works very, very neatly for me; I found the latter song clunky and essentially, a mess (and much worse than Rolling in the Deep). (Notice ‘neat’ is something I’d be more likely to think about cognitively than feel emotively?) It’s good but gets grating quickly.

It probably is appropriate in conveying the rage one might experience at the (opportunity as well as emotional) costs of a breakup, but I’ve got to ask myself whether this is the kind of thing I can possibly enjoy listening to frequently.  Maybe I’m more of a passive person, but breakup songs of quiet resolve and tempered anger (Heartless), or those of sadness (Jay Sean Lights Off) seem to work better.

Perhaps a comparison to Bruno Mars’ Grenade may be appropriate – these songs are both about questionable ways of dealing with break-ups. Grenade is certainly ludicrous; Rolling in the Deep’s method is questionable, but not as nonsensical – it’s left ambiguous (I’ll lay your ship bare…). It’s okay.

I think it’s the production that kills things for me though – the backing chorus is too extensive. Someone once described Willow Smith’s Whip My Hair as a “noisy” song – and it was much worse than this, but unfortunately I’d find Rolling in the Deep having a bit too much unnecessary noise in the chorus.

I don’t know. This is a hard song for me to like – I find it gets grating quickly. I can appreciate the power in her voice, BUT I cannot listen to this without getting annoyed.

OVERALL RATING = 5.5 / 10
I can see that there is power in Adele’s voice, but somehow I find the production a bit of a letdown here, and it seems to mess things up. Technically she is strong, the concept of the song is fine, but… the execution of the song somehow pisses me off.