Adele is not a soul singer. She does not sing r&b or soul music so this isn't even a valid question.

babynoz said:

SoulAlive said:

I thought Mary J.Blige is supposed to be the "queen of soul" for this generation

Nope, that's queen of hip hop soul....get your queens straight please,

lezama said:

SeventeenDayze said:

What does it mean to be "marketable" exactly?

Marketability is always relative to the market, so if its a niche market the combination of type of talent and image should be relevant to that niche somehow. When Adele started off her managers were pushing her in the blue-eyed soul category, but when they realized she could be bigger than that they pushed her full into the adult contemporary / power balad singing category and it's worked out well. Marketability always combined image with talent, if you don't have the talent to back it up, image is kinda irrelevant. But A&R people primary task if weighing options about who to invest their time and money on, if you compare two people of equal talent, they're going to put their money behind the one with talent but who will appeal more to the masses or if they only work in a niche market, the artist who'll appeal more to that niche.

You think there are artists out there who don't mostly rely on their image and have very little talent? I would name a few here but don't want to start any side tracked discussions

There is only one and will only be one Queen of Soul, and her name is not Jill Scott or Adele Adkins, it is Aretha Franklin.

lezama said:

Hamad said:

I hear you, but I don't think its that cynical, really. The general listener don't really think or care about that. She touches a thing in these people's hearts. Hence why she's in demand.

I wasn't trying to be cynical, just speaking as a business man would. Radio stations and record labels aren't engaging in some charitable activity of bringing the masses quality music to enrich their lives, they're doing it to retire in their 40's, send their kids to ivy league schools, buy nice mansions in coveted zip codes etc etc. Its a business.

I know you weren't trying to be

And I was speaking from a listener's standpoint.

new Queen Of Soul is Naomi Saalfield from Hiatus Kaiyote