Adele

It’s quite long overdue seeing as her album came out nearly 18 months ago, but I thought I should write about how wonderful I find Adele.

In a recent English task, we were told to decide on what we think is the greatest love song or poem ever written. I didn’t have my iPod with me, so began to search my head frantically. Before long, ‘Make You Feel My Love’ by Bob Dylan sprang to mind. I remembered the beautiful cover that Adele had put on her debut album ‘19’. This in turn made me consider other songs of hers as the greatest love song. ‘Daydreamer’? ‘Hometown Glory’? I quickly realised how magnificent her song writing and portraying of her music is.

Since her first appearance on ‘Later... with Jools Holland’ in November 2007, Adele has developed from ‘One to Watch in 2008’ to a worldwide superstar. ‘19’ has sold 2.24m copies worldwide (and counting), she’s cracked America, appeared on the Hootenanny and even starred in ‘Ugly Betty’. She’s collaborated with Jack White, Jamie T, Jack Penate and Daniel Merriweather and been praised by Kanye West and Beyonce. 17m American watched her on ‘Saturday Night Live’. Not bad for a girl from Tottenham.

She claims to have started singing when she was 4. She loved the Spice Girls and Gabrielle (her mum even made her a sequined eye-patch) before moving onto Slipknot. When attending The BRIT School (Kate Nash, The Kooks, Katie Melua) she discovered Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald. This changed her musical perspective and majorly influenced the music she makes today.

Her debut single in Autumn 2007 was ‘Hometown Glory’, released on friend Jamie T’s record label. Only 500 copies were made so it didn’t exactly shake up the music industry. It was when she landed a major record deal that she released ‘Chasing Pavements’ early in 2008. This was when the UK began to sit up and take notice. It stayed at Number 2 for 4 weeks and remained in the top 40 for 14. Next release ‘Cold Shoulder’, which reminded many of Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Symphony’, didn’t get quite so high but was still warmly received.

A re-release of ‘Hometown Glory’ was her final charted song before she moved on to crack America. She did so with great determination, but it originally seemed like it had failed. She managed to get a spot on the episode of ‘Saturday Night Live’ which Sarah Palin was appearing on. The large audience boosted attention towards her and ‘19’ hit the top of the iTunes chart.

It’s worth noting that ‘Hometown Glory’ is has been one of the most used songs on TV for the last few years on both sides of the pond, featuring in ‘Skins’, ‘Hollyoaks’, ‘90210’, ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘Coronation Street’ to name a few.

It looks like the superstar career of the extremely talented Adele is showing no signs of slowing. She’s currently working on her second album which, with any luck and some good songwriting, should be as good as her first.