Artists like Adele and Paloma Faith have benefitted career wise enormously from Amy Winehouse's career decline & death. I know that sounds callous, but that's not the intention. Just that Amy was MILES better than Adele vocally & wrote memorable songs with powerful lyrics. Sadly her life spiralled out of control so beyond the tabloid attention her musicianship was mostly forgotten. Due to the high profile Amy garnered female singer songwriters came into the fore in the uk & paloma, Adele & Emile were able to exploit this better, as they didn't not go into a spiral.
For me Adele is a good vocalist, but not exceptional.
I prefer Paloma to be honest, she can be a little shrill at times but has good range & is exceptional live. She also has a somewhat MOR musical catalogue but unlike Adele is willing to take risks. She did EDM song "changes" recently which got to No1. Can you imagine Adele doing something like that??
It's all about sticking to a winning & money making formula for her, from what I can see so far.
The song about her ex (AGAIN) seems so cynical. It's like" well this worked, so let's keep giving 'em it"
I hope we can see something more adventurous from her in the future.