A tale of two post-Winehouse soul singers...

In 2008, in the wake of Amy Winehouse's phenomenal worldwide success, record labels were understandably clamouring for female blue-eyed soul acts to rake in the millions, which is where Adele and Duffy got lucky. They were both launched to similarly frenetic acclaim, both public and critical and by 2009 had even managed to break America (the two of them). Since then, the entire pop landscape has changed: post/neo/quasi/whatever soul is no longer fashionable (in fact it's hideously untrendy) and you're now a nobody if you're not employing flamboyant dress/expensive concept videos/techno rave synths in euphoric choruses.

Both Adele and Duffy have been forced into slightly different niches and whilst the latter Welsh Dusty Springfield impersonator has dumped her original creative team and recorded an album of (purportedly almost) disco pop!!! - and as a result flopped harder than a beached whale on the beaches of Wales - Adele has shifted slightly further left of centre, where we always hoped and knew she would go.

Her new single and video (and hopefully album) are stunning and odd and inventive. "Rolling in the Deep" is hurtling up the American iTunes chart as we speak, so apparently it paid off.