Let's start with a comment so obvious I shouldn't have to raise it: WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ADELE "i'M FAT AND I DON'T CARE" Adkins? I mean, I thought her entire schtick was, I'm Bridgette's Diary come to life? Who is this glammed up everymodel? How much touching up can one pix take? Actually, it looks very little like Adele and she should feel like crap for becoming the very thing all those Lifetime Movie, 50 Shades Of Casio Toning fangirls of her HATE!
As for the song? The song co-written by her producer Paul Epworth, is pretty terrible. The problem isn't all the bits and pieces, it should peak higher, but once you've said, it does the job, especially in the bridge where Epworth throws in John Barry's brilliant bridge like a tasty lick. The orchestration overwhelms but it has no particular place to go and it is all a touch too self-important, not unlike Bond 2012, where all the fun has fizzled out by Daniel Craig's :blunt instrument" of a Bond.
ANd Adele's vocals are fine. Believe it or not, compared to Shirley Bassey she is almost restrained. The song of romantic fidelity suits Adele's temperament and she sings it well, although I coul've done without the girly chorus.
But the song is terrible. It is like eating a meal in a dream, it looks like food but it tastes like nothing. It sounds like a good Bond song but there is nothing really there. There is a terrific review by Daphne Carr in The Capital and she wrote this: "As it moves through two verses and to the chorus, it's clear that the primary trick for arranger Paul Epworth, of "Rolling In The Deep" fame, is addition, in the evil math-genius style of the Diane Warren school: add strings, add more strings, add a woman's choir, add low horns, add a full choir, and then add more strings until you come to rest somewhere near the mid-four-minute mark. Except that Warren tweaks little things in each verse, chorus, and middle eight to make all those arrangements really work: Adele's song feels more like a vamp made into song by sticking a 77-person Abbey Road orchestra on it. The melody is unspectacular, and the barrage of countermelodies downright sinister. It might work as a kind of Sarah Brightman musical-theater gothic fantasy, but here it undercuts the supposedly anthemic quality of the track. And with “Skyfall”’s neo-realistic mix, sprays of lounge-y drums, and Adele's characteristic overwrought phrasing on these vague images, the tune takes on a downtempo air that fades into the background even as it gives up all the sound it's got." Good stuff, right?
The only place I disagree with her comment on Adele. My dislike of Adele is well documented, but if ever there was a time your wrought needed to be over is here.
But in the end, this is not a terrible Bond song, but I would be happy to never hear it again.
Grade: B-