In this week’s issue, John Colapinto writes about Dr. Zeitels, who’s performed vocal chord surgery on Adele, Roger Daltrey, and other notable singers. Here, Colapinto considers the claim by many that Adele has “seemed a little restrained” in her recent performances at the Oscars and the Grammys, and writes, 

I wonder whether Daltrey and others who have detected tentativeness are not projecting their own anxieties onto Adele, knowing that those extraordinary vocal cords were once laid open by the surgeon’s scalpel, and knowing that Adele knows it… That we see, or think we see, restraint or fear makes me understand why singers keep vocal problems a secret. 

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/Y16RVj 

Art Critic Peter Schjeldahl once thought that Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (1907) was, “a peculiarly incoherent painting,” but now he’s changed his mind: http://nyr.kr/KACF3b

The Grammy Awards: Chris Brown Overload

It doesn’t hurt that Adele is an apt hero—enormously talented, not rail thin, recently returned from vocal-cord surgery, and believably moved when collecting the trophies she must have known she would win. This was the best thing about the night: a gifted musician getting her due, even if her recordings are not yet as impressive as her instrument. She knocked “Rolling In The Deep” out of the park and said “snot” in her acceptance speech. Love it. But read no further if you need to believe in unicorns and platinum rainbows.

Before the telecast even began, several key things happened. Kanye West won the four awards he was nominated for, all variations within the Rap category. If we’re imagining—pure speculation here, folks—that the awards are not doled out purely on the basis of aggregated votes and are possibly (speculation!) jiggered around to serve various constituencies, then it might have been necessary to give Kanye all the rap awards in sight, since his exquisite album, “My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy” was not given a Best Album nomination. Much as we’re rooting for Adele, her modest, solid album “21” was in no way equal to West’s combination of patient craft and impatient, airy visions…

The Best Music of 2011: The British Singers

[Above,] a screen capture of a Google spreadsheet filled with the names of albums from 2011 that made an impression on me. The rows are arrayed in descending order of release date, a mild attempt to present data without weighting. For individual songs, I made an “S/FJ 2011 BEST OF” playlist on Spotify, which is missing key songs that are not in that music service’s catalog (like Charli XCX’s “Stay Away,” which would be in my top three). I will now ruin all of this even-handed nonsense with commentary.

- Sasha Frere-Jones writes about the best music of 2011: http://nyr.kr/sGQVR7

Sasha Frere-Jones Breaks Down This Year’s Grammy Nominations

Song of the Year

“All of the Lights,” Kanye West
“The Cave,” Mumford & Sons
“Grenade,” Bruno Mars
“Holocene,” Bon Iver
“Rolling in the Deep,” Adele

This award recognizes songwriting, rather than a finished recording (that’s Record of the Year). In that case, make Record of the Year salute the sonically adventurous (Bon Iver, Odd Future, Kanye) and hand this one to Adele for writing an instant classic. She’ll likely win everything anyway. Kanye’s “All of the Lights” should be shifted from this category into Record of the Year, and win.

In this week’s issue, Sasha Frere-Jones writes about the current queens of pop: Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Adele: http://nyr.kr/lv0YTz. Join him for a live chat about pop music today at 3 PM, or leave a question for him now: http://nyr.kr/lup1yu