both of them have very female audiences. the affects they're going for resonate with a lot of uk ladies. both of them I think have a mixture of vulnerability and power. vulnerable lyrics and some kind of power in their voices. 'Hello' makes me think of someone crying in their car on the way to work. uk really produces a lot of pop radio tunes which are about holding on
winehouse was beloved as a figure by a lot of girls I was friends with at the time. she seems to have become taken more seriously as time has passed. find her tunes really hard to relate to. that kind of retro pastiche of a sound that i never liked in the first place does nothing for me and that era of pop production is too harsh. her voice reminds me of female south asian singers with that kind of creaky thin high pitched thing. again I find it quite a harsh voice when she's in the upper registers. my girlfriend did back to black at a kareoke bar recently, had never paid attention to the words before, a pretty dark and sad song
adele sounds provincial even though she's london through and through. winehouse sounds like london music. it doesn't translate to a rural sensibility. it's not down to earth enough. impractical music. and far too accepting of america. in the provinces we put up more of a fight against the american influence