Adele: Skyfall
Details
Pros:
Dramatic orchestrations satisfy .007 gurusCons:
Mid-grade lyrics and chorus hits a few bumping spotsThe power of Adele lands on the James Bond franchise
The power of Adele lands on the James Bond franchise
“This is the end/Hold your breath and count to ten,” Adele sings on the latest in the never-ending saga of James Bond anthems. Being an ambassador of everything great and unorthodox in the world of pop music, Adele takes on the daunting assignment that artists like Shirley Bassey, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Duran Duran and Tina Turner have all successfully tackled. And she handles the post well, singing with the familiarity executed on her cover of The Cure’s “Lovesong.” Somehow she rises above the melancholia of her previous torchers to sing of a hopeful finale’ in the midst of a paralyzing doom: “Let the sky fall, when it crumbles/We will stand tall and face it all together.” Lyrically the song hardly matches the glowing standards of “Rolling in the Deep,” but it doesn’t need that poetic adulation when it’s totally surrounded by broody psychedelia, supplanted with J.A.C. Redford’s orchestral crescendos. It does a fine job in keeping Adele rooted in familiar territory. As a .007 tune, the opening and closing bars of the song captures the hysteria of John Barry’s epic instrumentals, and proves “Skyfall” to be an attractive installment to the James Bond library of music.
LISTEN TO:
ADELE – SKYFALL
[audio:http://hifimagazine.net/music/adele-skyfall.mp3|titles=Adele – Skyfall]
