How did I know you would make a thread about this, Ichi?
Anyways... Yeah, I've said it many times before and I'll say it again. A lot of these artists, especially the British artists with soul roots, are being pushed by their teams to become the next Adele. Obviously Adele is not the first soul artist, but she is really one of the few soul artists who has been able to achieve success in mainstream music. I mean, three number-one singles from an artist whose musical style wasn't even really the trend when she released it? That's amazing. And with the kind of album sales and critical acclaim she's received, more artists want that (or their teams want it).
On the other hand, however, a lot of the artists who have been accused of copying Adele do have a lot of originality to their work and aren't entirely copycats. Ella Henderson, for example; at first, I got the impression they were going to make her into another Adele. But then I found out that she demanded full creative control upon signing with Syco, and her musical style is a lot more diverse, I think.
Chapter One is one of the best albums I've ever heard, and yes, some songs have similarities to Adele. But it's not like every song on the album is an attempt to replicate Adele's success.
The other thing to take into consideration is that some of the comparisons are brought upon by the general public's lack of exposure to soul music. I mean... Let's be honest, a large percentage of the general public today only listens to pop music, and they've never heard of people like Etta James or Aretha Franklin. Even though Amy Winehouse was very successful with her
Back to Black album, she was never able to peak where Adele did with
21, unfortunately. Amy was just starting to get big when she passed away. When Adele came out, though, she was EVERYWHERE. The success she achieved was massive and it's only natural for people to draw those kinds of comparisons.
There are plenty of artists who create similar music but aren't copying her, however, I do have to say that the majority of this is brought upon by the teams of artists who want them to achieve success by mimicking Adele. Sam Smith is a perfect example of this (his Grammys acceptance speech where he thanked the man that inspired his record was an obvious reference to Adele).
EDIT: And you also have to keep in mind that "Someone Like You" was the first piano-vocal ballad EVER to hit number-one on the Hot 100. After that, more and more artists were releasing ballads and trying to create that sort of music. "When I Was Your Man", "All of Me", "Stay", "Say Something", and pretty much Sam Smith's entire discography is a good representation of that. (BTW... I'm not trying to shade Sam Smith, I LOVE some of his stuff, but I think his team is pushing him way too hard to be the male Adele.)
In conclusion, I'm glad that more mainstream artists are starting to do more soulful music and expose the general public to it, but I want them to do it for the right reasons; not for success, but for the love of the music because soul is something that more people should be exposed to and unfortunately aren't because of the way the industry is nowadays.
? Have you noticed piano ballads becoming more excepted? Have you heard SLY-eqse songs? Have you heard beat thumping songs like RITD? Explain 
