We discovered ADÉLA with an EP titled “The Provocateur,” whose cover features the Slovak singer standing in the street and urinating. Her early singles, such as the cheeky “SexOnTheBeat,” amplified that transgressive, sex-positive facet of the artist, but her debut suggests that Adéla Jergová’s current mission is to blend as fully as possible into the American mainstream.
This isn’t a new phenomenon for ADÉLA. Interestingly, even in her childhood, when she idolized artists like Lady Gaga or Beyoncé (she is 22 years old, born in 2003), the young dancer—trained in Moscow and later based in Vienna—said that her musical tastes had “americanized” her and that Europe felt out of place. In her hit “Ain’t in LA”—a punchy track very reminiscent of Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop”—she asserts that the “baddest bitches aren’t in Los Angeles.” Some of them originate from a former Soviet country.
There is a touch of the early ADÉLA in her first single, “KGB,” which, over a house-pop beat, makes a playful pun with the acronym of the Soviet intelligence and secret police agency. But the album actually drinks from American R&B and pop to the point of sounding somewhat anonymous, though the compositions are solid and noticeably more pleasant than those of KATSEYE, the group she nearly joined.
Although there is more personality in a single line like “Just a little European girl, was plotting on my rise / Eighteen, immigrated, a star in the making” than in most of the album’s productions, the melodies of “Red Bottoms” and the aforementioned “Ain’t in LA” are excellent, both among the more urban-sounding tracks. Then the piano ballad “Hitachi” demonstrates ADÉLA’s versatility, proving more beautiful than what is typically found on a debut record.
The trap-pop of “Nicole Kidman” confirms the enduring relevance of this sound years later and features a credit from Uffie. One wishes the album sounded as visionary as “Pop the Glock,” but the participation of familiar pop-industry songwriters like Blake Slatkin, Caroline Ailin, and Julia Michaels helps it sit squarely within the current industry pop, though there are still good songs to be found.
Particularly notable is the retro-pop “I’m the Man,” which addresses gender fluidity, and the Pussycat Dolls-esque “Boys” that stirs the pace in an album largely built around mid-tempo tracks, feeling somewhat weaker toward the end with cuts like “Therapy” or “Marijuana,” where ADÉLA wonders if she is the “next Madonna.” For now, she is the first Slovak pop star that might come to mind for many, and that alone is an achievement.
