Originally published nov 11 2020.
Who is Angelina’s most favourite singer? Two names immediately jump into our minds.
Billie Holiday is widely cited to be the biggest influence on the early development of Angelina’s vocal style.
The Beehive
When Angelina grew a bit older, commentators started to associate her voice with that of Amy Winehouse. She reinforced such impression by covering quite a few classics of Amy Winehouse and sporting her famous beehive hairdo on many occasions.
Not to mention that intimate picture she took with the statue of Amy Winehouse.
Measured by the number of Covers – Adele wins
Thanks to Rusty (Shackelford) for his complete compilation of all Angelina’s works, we can now take a methodical approach to this question. If Angelina’s fondness of a singer can be measured by the number of covers she has done, neither Billie Holiday nor Amy Winehouse may claim the title. Angelina’s most favourite singer turns out to be Adele.
Angelina has recorded eight Adele covers over the years. Two of her earliest studio recordings were Adele covers (“Rolling in the Deep”, “Skyfall”),
which indicates that her fondness of Adele started from the very beginning. Her Adele covers are also among the most acclaimed in her repertoire, including such masterpieces as “Million Years Ago”, “Someone like You” and “When We Were Young”.
The runner-up is Frank Sinatra, with six covers in the bag.
Amy Winehouse has to share the third place with Elvis Presley, with five covers each. With only three covers, Billie Holiday occupies the fifth place together with Etta James, Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson.
Another notable fact is that there are five songs on Youtube that were recorded prior to her NGT debut (“I Who Have Nothing”, “Rolling in the Deep”, “Skyfall”, “I Have a Dream” and “Hurt”), four of them are pop songs.
Is Angelina actually a pop singer?
She went on to sing far more pop songs than any other genre. Out of the 132 songs compiled by Rusty, there are 54 pop, 20 Jazz, 15 R&B, 13 Christmas, 12 Soul, 8 Rock, 6 EDM/Electro/Disco, 3 Country, and 1 Chanson according to Wikipedia or other online sources.
(Christmas Song Rehearsal at 12) As much as we would like to think that Angelina is a Jazz singer, the fact remains that pop genre has always been the main constituent of her artistry.