Adele and Whitney Houston - Best Female Performers

Adele's new hit album "25" along with the hit single "Hello" have had crazy good sales. She stands atop the current pantheon of female singers and for good reason. But how does Adele stand up next to Whitney Houston, another great performer with a great voice.

If you look at Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" against Adele's "25" you can see some real similarities - especially when viewing the videos. I love both of these performers so much that I am pleased to see that they have some similar ideas. It is the same as Michael Jackson and James Brown; both are great performers with one graciously standing on the shoulders of another to push the quality of musical performance to greater and greater heights.

Both 25 and I Will Always Love You have terrific arrangements and the story lines on the videos are excellent. The cinematography on both are fantastic. The musical performances on both songs are excellent and the musical production on both songs cannot be criticized. I like the contrast in tones between the two songs with Adele opting for a traditional grand piano sound and Houston going for a mellow electric Rhodes piano sound. The music in both cases is very gentle on the ears.

The production of the voices is where the two singers depart. When you listen to Houston you get every nuance. Her voice is so gentle and wonderful, but powerful and bold when she needs it to be. The amount of subtle soft emotion practically wants to make you cry while her loud authoritative moments in the song gets your emotions super energized. Overall Houston gets such a light floating effect you feel that you are listening to the most powerful whisper mankind has had the pleasure to hear.

Adele has every bit of Houston's vocal ability, but her producers have let her down. Adele's producers applied too much compression to her vocals, and to the entire arrangement in general, and sucked the gentle feeling out of the melody, which would have been so nice to hear. I would have loved to hear Adele's performance before all the goo/gawps were added that producers insist on putting onto songs nowadays. You know, massive compression and limiting so that volume levels can be pushed through the roof.

So in conclusion; Adele and Whitney Houston end in a tie, both are great performers and both have wonderful voices. We do have to imagine a bit how much better Adele would have sounded had she had Houston's more subtle producer's.