It’s been a while since I considered watching the Grammy Awards on any regular basis. I mean, yeah, the fact that fun. win for Best New Artist for having their song “Some Nights” rip off “Cecilia” so much I expected to hear Art Garfunkel in the background… That’s okay. If fun. can win for Best New Artist, that will mean we won’t hear from them again for years.
The fact that Gotye won Song of the Year for the track “Someone That I Used To Know” is fine by me, in that I like the idea that the song causes such a visceral reaction from people who hear it having been played 35 million times over the past year… ha ha ha ha ha…
And us old-school peeps are happy that Sir Paul McCartney picked up another Grammy, this time for best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Kisses On the Bottom, his collection of standards. This should at least make my blogreader DerryX happy, in that he was upset that McCartney’s RAM LP didn’t receive any Grammy love this year.
But I think the one thing that is infuriating me right now about the Grammy Awards is the way people are treating Adele – or, at least, her fashion sense.
The amazingly talented singer-songwriter wore a red floral Valentino dress to the Grammy Awards, a dress that has been criticized all over the Internet this morning. I’ve heard comments about somewhere in England, a set of curtains is missing. Or that Adele recycled the covers from an old davenport.
But the worst comments about the dress from people have been that it made Adele look like a couch.
Trust me. If Katy Perry wore this dress, there would be a million tweets out there about how the dress makes Katy Perry look amazing.
This dress makes Adele look mature. She looks like she’s having fun with her life and with her career. It’s a break from her basic black fashions of the past, and it’s a sign that she’s moving into a new phase in her super-successful life.
But the comments from people seem to focus less about the dress and more about Adele’s Reubenesque figure – in that suggesting that Adele looks like a couch in that dress is to suggest that Adele is fat and frumpy. And the dress gives many of these same people an excuse to make snarky, catty, vulgar fat jokes at Adele’s expense.
Really? You have to go there? At all?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a card-carrying member of the Adele Atkins Fan Club. I do like some of her songs – “Chasing Pavements” and “Someone Like You” for example, while “Rolling in the Deep” got OH – VER – PLAYED – TO -DEATH. Even with that, I certainly aknowledge that Adele’s strong, powerful voice and heartfelt lyrics make her the Dusty Springfield for a new generation, an artist where millions of fans will listen to her records over and over and over again, channeling her emotional vocals and lyrics into their own personal moods and recollections.
And forgive me if I use a 1960’s pop reference, but because she’s shaped more like Cass Elliot than Michelle Phillips, there are people who give her short shrift because of her weight. Trust me. Cass Elliot was a successful solo artist and she had vocal power and style that also captured the hearts of millions. So does Ann Wilson of Heart. So did Deborah Iyall of Romeovoid. And they did it with their voices. Powerful, soaring voices.
But because Adele wore a floral print dress that didn’t show off a generous amount of thigh, that didn’t have a neckline that plunged all the way down to her knees, the critics are using this opportunity to make “Adele is a couch” and “Adele is fat” jokes at her expense.
It doesn’t matter. Adele could wear a dress made out of all the Grammy Awards that she’s earned over the past few years and that wouldn’t be enough for the haters and the griefers. And just because they didn’t like her floral print dress, doesn’t mean that everybody in the world should throw away her albums and only listen to lithe, svelte prefab popsters. Come on.
So as far as I’m concerned, Adele wore a very nice dress. It was a dress that made her look important, like she was a respected member of the music industry – a place she earned with her voice and her lyrics and her heart.
Her dress doesn’t sing for her. It doesn’t have to. That’s Adele’s job.
And all the haters and bullies that give Adele grief about her wardrobe last night… will be the first ones in line to purchase her new album the minute it hits store shelves.
Chuck The Writer 
I would wear the same dress on stage and on live TV if I ever had the honor to win a Grammy. These folks are singers and musicians, not fashion models. And during the flower power era everyone ran around looking like that….including the ones ranting about it now. Maybe they were too fogged up smoking who knows what back then that they no longer remember.
That aside, Gotye’s song is called “Somebody that I used to know”. Apparently, it didn’t get played enough. 😉
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I hate everything about award shows, though the Grammys are particularly annoying since it is a celebration of pop and only pop music. REAL rock has been absent from this elite power slurping for a long time and anything the Grammys consider in realm of hard rock or heavy metal is joke.
I refuse to have my tastes validated by a group of elite one percenters that tell us what’s hip and what’s cool. Same thing with the Emmys and Oscars. This world would be so much better off if people stopped worshiping celebrities. Ugh.
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#2: Well said. Grammys? zzzzz. Self-congratulatory “awards” shows are not in my sphere of reference at all. I’m no fashionista, and I like and respect Adele as an artist and couldn’t care less about her weight, but come on, that dress is hideous.
Abbie Hoffman said: “Anyone who remembers the Sixties wasn’t there”. From my foggy recollection, those bright flower print garments were skirts, not dresses, and they were worn with white peasant blouses. I wore standard guy fashion: t-shirts and old blue jeans in the summer and sweatshirts and old blue jeans in the winter.
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I like Adele, I love her voice. But, I must disagree with you. I don’t care if Katy Perry or Jennifer Lopez wore the dress – they would have looked like a couch also. It isn’t about her weight – the dress is a horrific pattern, no one could pull it off. I can picture it on Sara Jessica Parker because I think she also wears some hideous clothes. I would love to see Adele in something other than basic black, but not in such a gaudy, obnoxious pattern, I don’t care who designed the dress. It just isn’t flattering, it DOES look like a couch whether is is in a size 2 or 16+.
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Adele is a heffer.
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Is it any better if I said that the dress reminded me of a JC Penney bedspread? I agree with justagirl–the dress would not have looked good on Marilyn Monroe!
If that dress were in my closet, I’d be afraid that it would come out at night to get me!
Maybe Adele didn’t want to wear that dress–maybe she had no choice!! AAAIIIIEEEEE!!! 😀
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Don’t like the Dress? Criticize the designer and never mind the commentary on Adele’s shape/weight.
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That fabric wouldn’t look good on a couch either.
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There is nothing wrong with Adele, she is comfortable in her own skin, the dress is another thing – like justagirl said – I dont care who you put in that dress – it is hideous! Didn’t do a thing for her and only brought more attention to her weight. Myself being not in the teeny-weenie group – i stay away from stipes, large flowery prints! Whats with these Designers? These are not flattering to us.
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Thank you!!! I loved this dress and would rock it if I could afford it.
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Love “Rumor Has It” and am working my way through the CD. This woman has a gorgeous face. I’m not crazy about this dress, but she’s a stunning woman. I like that type of singing voice!
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I actually like the look of the dress in the picture you have on this post.
But I didn’t like it on TV and I don’t think it was very flattering on her.
With that being said, I don’t think it matters what she wears though – she’d be absolutely gorgeous even if she was wearing a potato sack.
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Uhg. Just a dreadful choice. I wouldn’t say it makes her look upholstered, but it definitely makes her look matronly. She’s 24, for heaven’s sake! Why is she wearing a grandmother-of-the-bride dress?
Even worse than the pattern is the strange rigidity of the fabric. It ‘drapes’ like it was made of stiff paper. I kept wondering how she could sit without sending the skirt up in front of her face.
I know she likes her retro vibe, but some styles are best left unrevisited.
As to her voice and songwriting talents — nobody better say a negative thing about that! Some of her songs will surely become classics.
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It’s unfortunate that a dress from the Grammy’s draws more comments that a lot of your other topics. I think people miss Amanda Taler!
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And, surprisingly, you haven’t commented on many of my other topics either, Bloggo… maybe you miss Amanda too? If so, click here and you can read her current adventures. 🙂
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You cannot tell me that Adele looked in the mirror and did not laugh at herself before going to the Grammy’s ?! Come on, she has to have a sense of humor to wear a dress that ugly with a butt that big and get away with it.
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The material is stunning, if Jimi Hendrix had worn a coat made of this no one would be saying he looked like grandma’s sofa.
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The problem isn’t that the material isn’t pretty, or her large frame. It’s just not a flattering cut on a large frame.
High-necked dresses like that work on someone like Audrey Hepburn because she was flat and had a bony chest. You’d never see Audrey in a low-cut dress because she’d look ridiculous, like Skeletor.
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Tim, Jimi Hendrix was a musical genius and the best rock guitarist who ever has–or ever will–walk on this earth. He also had better fashion sense. The material is “stunning” all right, but not in a good way. Back in a politically incorrect era, the running joke was that elite fashion designers were all bitter gay men who hated women. This “creation” reinforces that old stereotype.
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Adele is extraordinarily successful because her songs and voice connect with millions.
Cyber-sniping about her weight has been going on for years, and not dented her popularity.
IMHO, the dress is too big — sleeves, high-neck, bell-shaped below the waist. Adele would have rocked a smaller, sexier version.
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