Adele Laurie Blue Adkins is a British pop singer and songwriter known for setting the standards for records and breaking them to set another higher standard.
Her ethereal voice, powerhouse performances, and evocative songwriting are what draw the legion of fans that follow her. Also, the 16-time Grammy Award singer-songwriter’s ability to channel her emotions into songs, and soulful tunes that are easily relatable is what attracts listening ears.
Background
The Grammy award singer was born on 5 May 1988, in Tottenham, London. She lived with her mother who raised her as a single. She started singing at the age of four. Her mother, Penny Adkins, encouraged her by buying a toy guitar for her from a charity shop. The soprano gazelle in an interview with The Telegraph said that she was 15 years old when she discovered a collection of Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James records from a local shop. She played them and felt inspired by their sound, their rhythm and blues. She wanted to make music like this, one with longevity notes that would stand the test of the musical era and still be relevant. Although, there was no musical heritage in their family. Her father of Welsh origin, Marc Evans divorced her mother when she was two years old, her mother was a working-class lady, and she was spurred by the idea of going into music full-time because of these legends.
Musical breakthrough
Adele attended the prestigious BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology where she honed her talents and began to write and sing her songs. The teen popstar in training made a three-track demo for a class project which was later uploaded online at MySpace by her friend. Back then, MySpace was a very popular platform. The songs amassed a good amount of streams and caught the attention of music executives from XL Recordings. XL Recordings was impressed by her soulful voice and confidence as a performer after she performed at a gig in West London. The record label CEO, Richard Russel contacted and signed young Adele after she graduated from BRIT School in April 2006.
First album release
On 28 January 2008, she released her Blue-eyed Soul, R&B debut album titled 19, which was named after the age she wrote most of the tracks that constitute the album. Singles from debut albums like Chasing Pavements and Make You Feel My Love were included in the top ten United Kingdom Singles Chart. Adele was invited to the Saturday Night Live show where she performed a few tracks from her album. Her performance on the television program introduced her to American audiences. In the first half of 2009, Adele was a certified international artist and was honoured with awards to show for it. At the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, she won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Performance for Chasing Pavements. 19 was named of the top 20 best-selling albums of all time in the United Kingdom and also, shortlisted for the Mercury Prize.
Adele’s debut concert tour was titled “An Evening with Adele” in support of her debut studio album. Adele tickets for the tour sold well and it began on 27 January 2008 at Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, England and ended on 12 July 2009 at the Theatre Hall 1, Rotterdam, Netherlands. It was Adele’s debut album and it was expected that she would include more dates for her shows in the United Kingdom. However, her tour had more dates in North America.
Second studio album
The English singer released her second studio album, 21 on 24 January 2011. During the period of the album recording and production, Adele was going through a shaky relationship with her partner who was 10 years older than her. Finally, the relationship broke down after a bumpy ride. Songs on 21 are inspired by her heartbreak. That is why 21 is arguably her best album. Adele freed her mind by channelling her painful emotions into her songs. It was received with universal acclaim and was a commercial success. It topped the charts in 30 countries and became the World’s best-selling album in 2011 and 2012.
It is the fourth-best album of all time in the United Kingdom . With singles such as Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You and her signature song Set Fire to the Rain, Adele won six Grammy Awards. 21 spent 23 weeks atop the United Kingdom Album Chart and 24 weeks on the US Billboard 200. This is the longest by a female solo artist in both countries. In 2012, she released a soundtrack titled Skyfall for the James Bond film Skyfall, which won her the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
In support of her second studio album, Adele visited Europe and North America. With 31 shows in Europe and 20 in North America, “Adele Live” was live. Adele was diagnosed with acute laryngitis which led to numerous adjustments on the tour’s itinerary. The tour began on March 21, 2011, at Rockefeller Music Hall, Oslo, Norway and ended on 25 September 2011 at the O2 Academy Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland. Box Office recorded a sum of $2 million generated from ticket sales in the first 10 shows.
Third studio album
Breaking first-week sales records in both the United Kingdom and the United States, “25” was Adele’s third studio album named after the year she wrote a majority of the songs. 25 released on 20 November 2015 won five Grammy Awards for the English singer-songwriter. The album sold over 3.36 million copies in its first week of sales. The album became Adele’s second-best-selling album, sitting just behind her second album, 21. The lead single Hello debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100. In addition, it broke iTunes records for being number 1 in 102 countries.
At the 59th Grammy Awards, Hello won Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. Other chart toppers from the album include When We Were Young, Send My Love(To Your New Lover), and Water Under the Bridge. In November 2011, the singer underwent vocal cord surgery, and Vogue wrote, “Has any pop star ever had a bigger year shackled to a bigger letdown?”
In 2016, Adele announced her tour, “Adele Live 2016” that would begin in Europe and work her way through North America and Oceania. The tour was in support of her third studio album, 25. It began on 29 February in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the SSE Arena and was scheduled to conclude on 2 July 2017 at Wembley Stadium, London. However, Adele cancelled her final two performances due to vocal injuries. She had to undergo a micro-throat surgery. The tour amassed $278 million in revenue from ticket sales. Adele also headlined Glastonbury Festival and called it the “best moment” of her life so far.
Fourth studio album
The 16-time Grammy Awards singer released her fourth studio album, 30, on 19 November 2021. It was her first studio album after six years. This was a result of the depressing experiences she encountered. Adele’s representatives announced that she and Simon Konecki had separated, and she filed for divorce. She also decided to mend her relationship with her estranged father. All of these while joggling the duties of motherhood. She took therapy to help her with her anxiety problems. The lead single Easy on Me reached number one on the charts in 28 countries. It won the 2022 Brit Award for Song of the Year and bagged a Grammy Award at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Pop Solo Performance. It became Adele’s longest-running chart-topper in the United Kingdom and United States. Other singles that made it to the United Kingdom top-five charts were I Drink Wine and Oh My God. 30 was the best-selling album of the year. A feat Adele is too familiar with.
Break
Adele is currently on a break. She told ZDF, a German broadcaster “My tank is quite empty at the minute. I don’t have any plans for new music at all. I want a big break after all this and I think I want to do other creative things just for a little while. You know, I don’t even sing at home at all. How strange is that?” She deserves the brief hiatus to help her recollect her thoughts and feelings. Hopefully, another hit song or fingers crossed another best-selling album will be the end product of this break. However, Adele’s position amongst the greats in the music industry has been solidified. She is up there with her childhood inspirations, Etta and Ella.
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