An English rose emerged as Grammy royalty after last Sunday's show, winning in every category she was nominated and confirming what the Style Observer has known for some time now: the English are smoking hot right now.

And why shouldn't they be? For too long the Americans have hogged the spotlight, appropriating nucleus status, even when they didn't deserve to. Who, for example, has the more politically relevant (read: meaningful) oeuvre, Lily Allen or Beyoncé? But who is the bigger star? (Hint: if you're wondering who Lily Allen is, I guess I've made my point.)

The Americans have legitimate, deserving big-name celebs. There's no disputing that. I'm a huge fan of Meryl Streep, for example; she's the real deal. But I also think the holy triumvirate of my favourite British actresses — Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and the great Maggie Smith — is every bit as talented as Streep is, maybe even more so. Not that they need Hollywood to validate them; they absolutely do not; they are all pre-eminent actresses in Britain. Still, who's more likely to star in at least one 'big' (read: widely released) picture each year: Streep or, say, Smith?

But never let it be said that we're aiding and abetting a culture war here. Fact is, this column is a toast to Adele. Congratulations, girl! The lassie deserves the recognition these Grammys have all but assured her of further receiving. I loved her from her phenomenal 19, which I'd ordered out of mere curiosity, a few years ago. I'd seen her partly-hidden face on the album cover and something about it intrigued me. She'd managed, up until then, to fly beneath my radar. They say never judge a book by its cover, but what do they know. Whoever these they are. I listened to a few bars of the songs on Amazon, and all I knew was I wanted the album. I was experiencing a period of boredom and disenchantment with the popular music at the time. Worse, with the singers, especially the female ones, who were being hyped up apropos of nothing. I mean, they were unable to say anything insightful on the nature of love and what it meant to be a woman.

But this Adele, this kid, really, was actually saying something in her sort of '60s neo-soul revivalism. And she didn't strike me as self-destructive as her fellow English woman, Amy Winehouse, whom I resisted with every fibre of my being, having correctly foreseen only heartbreak in my future if I allowed myself to care about her. (Although I will forever be grateful for her gift of Tears Dry On Their Own, which I absolutely love and play ad nauseam whenever it comes around on my iPod.)

So anyway, I looked Adele up on the Internet and found that she, big hair and all, reminded me of Lulu. I mean, back-in-the-day Lulu, you know, all plump-girl sass and attitude Lulu, when she co-starred with Sidney Poitier in the movie and sang the theme for To Sir, With Love. She made me nostalgic for the music of the '60s, or if not necessarily the music of the '60s then the zeitgeist of the '60s and early-70s. I think that we who are of a certain age yearn for something that reminds us of when life was uncomplicated. Not that we're romanticising the era — lord knows, those days had their problems, too: Vietnam, nukes, the threat of Communism. But Adele's image communicated something more. It told me that she was her own person. Non-conformism always impresses me; when someone doesn't take their cues about how to look and sound from the Hollywood playbook, it makes me want to cheer. And she definitely wasn't trying to ape pinup girls like little Miss Ri-Ri. I loved that. If anything, she struck me as a sort of white Etta James for the now generation. A meaty Lauryn Hill. Go ahead and rock the sixties hair and frosted make-up, girl, I ain't mad at ya!

And neither, apparently, is Anna Wintour. She put Adele on the cover of this March's edition of Vogue. And — gasp! — she didn't even stipulate that the singer lose weight! So take that, Karl Lagerfeld. Madame Oracle herself doesn't think she's too fat for Vogue!

Even if she does, Miss Wintour has the good sense to know that it doesn't matter if she is: what matters is that Adele is hot and to miss hopping on that train would be foolhardy.

Indeed, Adele's aesthetic is secondary. (Can the haters stop ragging, once and for all, on her boots? If I lived in Europe I'd wear boots everywhere, even in the shower.) When I heard the girl wail... To this day, Chasing Pavements is the signature Adele song for me. She spoke to me in a way Amy Winehouse did not. Even though, don't get me wrong, I found Winehouse's bouffant très inspirational, too. Critics likened Adele to Winehouse back then, and sort of unofficially knighted her the heir apparent to Winehouse, because, well, frankly, one would have to be quite blind not to have seen Winehouse's inevitable demise approaching from 100 miles away.

Adele may remind many of Amy Winehouse, a singer who gave new meaning to wearing one's heart on one's sleeve. Like Winehouse, Adele has expressed in her songs a soul-baring honesty about the exquisite sadness she's had to endure in her short life. She was abandoned by her father and she's apparently had bad luck with men. And if we want to read even deeper into the lyrics, she seems positively haunted by an obsession to find and keep a man. She's wise beyond her 23 years. Let's not even speculate on her issues with older men, which would seem about right since we who have daddy issues ourselves completely get why messing with older men seems to be our default position. Still, one wonders, are sad love ballads all she can do well? Is heartbreak all she can trade on to get kudos? In the end, let us not forget, Amy Winehouse was torn apart as much by this same heartbreak that Adele sings about as she was by fame and addiction. The same, sadly, can be said for that other singer we've been mourning for a week now: Whitney Houston. I know we don't wish this premature end for Adele. We don't wish for her the trappings of fame that undid those two cautionary tales, Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston.

"I've never wanted to look like models on the cover of magazines," Adele stoically told People magazine in response to Karl Lagerfeld's recent, now-infamous 'fat' comments. "I represent the majority of women and I'm very proud of that." Here's to you, Adele. Long may you continue to think so!

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