(excerpt courtesy of Wikipedia) Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (born 5 May 1988 in Enfield, North London), known professionally as Adele (pronounced /әˈdɛl/), is a British singer. Adele has described her musical style as "heartbroken soul." She is the first recipient of...
[more](excerpt courtesy of Wikipedia)
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (born 5 May 1988 in Enfield, North London), known professionally as Adele (pronounced /әˈdɛl/), is a British singer. Adele has described her musical style as "heartbroken soul." She is the first recipient of the BRIT Awards Critics' Choice, which was given to artists who, at the time, had yet to release an album.
Adele debuted at number one with her Mercury Prize-nominated debut album 19 on the UK album chart; the album has since been certified platinum with sales of more than 500,000 copies in the UK and over 2.2 million worldwide. After the album peaked at number fifty-four on the Billboard 200 chart on 8 July, 2008 (and number thirty-six on the magazine's "Top Heatseekers" chart) Adele performed before 17 million television viewers on Saturday Night Live, propelling her album from number forty-six to number eleven on the official chart.
In 2009, Adele won two Grammy Awards, Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the single "Chasing Pavements". The week after the Grammy Awards aired, the album finally peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200. Meanwhile, her single "Chasing Pavements" reached number twenty one on the Billboard Hot 100.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a thank you letter to Adele that stated "With the troubles that the country's in financially, you're a light at the end of the tunnel."
Adele wrote her first record, "Hometown Glory" when she was 16 years old. She then signed to independent music label XL Recordings, which in January 2008 released her second single Chasing Pavements. The song was co written with songwriter Eg White who provided the orchestration. White won the 2009 Ivor Novello Award for "Songwriter of the Year" in part for his work on Chasing Pavements.
During her teenage years she recorded a demo and gave it to her friend, Lyndon. He eventually put it on MySpace and it became very successful there. Adele got a record deal through MySpace. When she got a phone call, she could not believe it was real because the only record company she knew was Virgin Records. When a friend told her that it was a real record company, she signed.
She then signed to independent music label, XL Recordings. In January 2008, Adele released her second single, "Chasing Pavements", hitting #2 for four weeks in the UK Chart and remaining in the Top 40 14 weeks after release.
On 4 February, 2008 the album entered the British charts at number 1. Also by that week, the single from the album Chasing Pavements had spent a third week at the number 2 position and another single from Hometown Glory had entered the charts at the number 32 position.
As of 4 December, 2008 the video for "Chasing Pavements" was the most played video on the United States Basic Cable channel VH1 for that year. Adele made her United States television debut on The Today Show
Her song Hometown Glory has been widely featured on United Kingdom and United States television shows including Skins, Grey's Anatomy, So You Think You Can Dance and Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
The album was certified as Gold for February 2009 by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album sold 230,000 copies in the United States during the first quarter of 2009 ranking it fourth among international artists..
As of July 2009 the album has sold 2.2 million copies.
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