Adéla “The Provacateur” Album Cover Universal Music Group
Adéla Jergová or Adéla is a Slovakian singer-songwriter who is arguably one of the most promising pop artists to arise from the latest wave of aspiring starlets. After seeing videos of her performances I can confidently say this—pop is going to get interesting.
To many, Adéla’s current rise seems to have appeared out of nowhere, but as someone who’s had an eye on her for a while it was definitely slow to start.
I first saw Adéla on “Dream Academy,” a pop survival show that made the trendsetting girl group Kateseye. She wasn’t the most popular contestant on the show, and was actually eliminated quite early on, but she was always known to fans as a contestant that should’ve gone farther.
Dream Academy didn’t hold my interest at the time so I knew little of Adéla until the release of her single “Superscar.” That’s when I realized that this was someone I needed to keep my eyes on.
“Superscar,” according to Adéla in an interview with Coco Mocoe, is a take on exploitation in the entertainment industry. This isn’t necessarily a new concept in music, but I find the way Adéla does it to be so compelling.
The imagery in the music video is gritty and packs quite a punch; it suits the lyrical and musical aspects quite well. One sequence that I enjoyed that Adéla actually discusses in the same interview is where she plays both a person auditioning and an executive who’s judging them.
What really convinced me to keep an eye on Adéla, though, was finding out she was independent at the time of the single’s release.
The effort and passion was already clear in her music, but the fact that she had to source many things on her own made her all the more impressive.
In the months post “Superscar,” Adéla released a few more songs but she captured audiences through the release of “SexOnTheBeat” on her debut album, “The Provocateur.”
“The Provocateur” was released Aug. 22, and I’ve been utterly obsessed with it since. The entire album has no skips, and “SexOnTheBeat” in particular is one of the most addictive songs I’ve heard since the release of “365” by Charli XCX.
“SexOnTheBeat” is truly one of her greatest tracks to date, both sonically and artistically. It follows her running theme of criticizing exploitation, this time directly confronting sexualization.
I find the way Adéla tackles sexualization to be refreshing. It’s nasty, provoking, and makes you deeply uncomfortable. It’s the perfect example of music as an art form top to bottom.
Like all of her songs, the imagery in the music video only pushes the song’s messaging further.
It starts with Adéla studying ways to harness sexuality via a video tutorial by Christina Aguilera, who makes a cameo in the music video, and only becomes increasingly provocative.
Some of the highlight sequences include Adéla dancing on a man, using her legs to slam his face towards her body as well as other dances featuring sexual motifs and positioning.
One of my favorite shots of the video was of Adéla performing to a crowd that watches her with expressions of discomfort or distaste, but still can’t help keeping their eyes on her.
I found the entire music video brilliant, especially given the increasing push of conservatism in recent years. It’s wonderful to see an artist directly push against that in an artistic, thought-provoking way.
In becoming a fan of Adéla, I did wonder what she would be like live given the production-heavy nature of her music. In the clips I’ve seen so far, she seems like an artist that performs even better live.
The only readily accessible videos of her live I could find were her MTV Push performances and while this does not compare to an entirely live performance, she does exceptionally well.
Adéla performed both “Superscar” and “SexOnTheBeat” on MTV Push and absolutely crushed both performances. I can’t even decide which I like better.
She opened her “Superscar” performance by harmonizing on a looping device to capture the same effect in the song, and it’s one of my favorite parts of either performance.
Once she builds up the song, she rises from her spot and dances with the full instrumental, creating a perfect blend of dancing and singing.
Her “SexOnTheBeat” performance is the more dance-heavy of the two, and the one where she shines the most. It’s clear Adéla is a strong dancer, but her presence is what really makes the performance so intoxicating.
There’s a moment where she pauses and talks to the audience and it adds so much character to her performance, it’s clear she has a lot of inspiration from previous pop icons. She almost emulates a darker version of Britney Spears in the 2000s.
Both of these performances are absolutely magnetic and it’s clear to me that Adéla will go far and may even become part of the next generation of pop icons.
She has the same passion and hunger seen in many of the top stars, and I look forward to seeing how she progresses as an artist. I highly recommend keeping an eye out for her.