chapter three
the hometown hero
adele and her mother moved from Brixton to West Norwood while Adele was at BRIT. They lived on the high street in a modest flat above a discount shop next to a garage. These could hardly have been less romantic surroundings. However, the area would reach a whole new level of glamour and become almost iconic after Adele wrote some of her biggest hits while there. The first Norwood song was actually about Tottenham, the place where Adele had grown up with Penny. By the time she started writing it, her musical ambitions were already on the way to becoming realised.
Adele was no longer merely flirting with the idea of becoming a singer. By the time she was 16, the notion was fully fledged ambition. It had been a class project that led Adele to stardom. ‘Part of my course at the BRIT School was recording lessons,’ she said. ‘I used to record demos in order to pass my course. I didn’t know what to do with them.’ But soon she would share them with a record label and quickly her life would change forever.
XL Recordings is a fascinating record label. In some ways, it is reminiscent of Creation Records in the heyday of Oasis. One of the similarities comes in the shape of its chairman and part-owner, Richard Russell. Like Alan McGee, the man at the helm of Creation, he is part-entrepreneur, part-creative music lover. Both of them have been as adept at closing deals and masterminding other aspects of the business as with the creative side. This is particularly true with Russell, who has produced music for such acts as Gil Scott-Heron and Major Lazer, as well as mixing tunes for leading British rapper Roots Manuva.
Certainly, his infectious enthusiasm is reminiscent of McGee at the peak of his Creation powers in the mid-1990s. Russell has even appeared on the promotional video for a song – with long hair, he looked more like a raver himself rather than a staid company boss. Russell stumbled into the industry, having found that music was a great escape from the boredom he felt in the north London suburbs he grew up in. He recorded mixtapes as a young man and sold them in Camden market. He also DJed and worked in a record shop. Then he worked for Island Records. ‘It was an incredibly exciting, vibrant place,’ he said. ‘You could smoke dope in the warehouse.’ He became involved in XL Recordings, and took over the reins when its founder, Tim Palmer, retired in 1995. The label signed the likes of the Prodigy and was soon making millions of pounds each year. Once the likes of Radiohead and the White Stripes joined the roster, XL was a major player, one with artists who drew both respect and sales from the record-buying public.
The philosophy of the label that signed Adele is simple. ‘I look for originality,’ said Russell. ‘Quality and originality and the hunch that someone might have longevity.’ He claims that, unlike much of the music industry which has a notoriously short-term view, he is very much focused on the long run. ‘You’re never really signing anyone on the strength of what they’re doing at that moment; you’re trying to recognise the potential of what someone does,’ he said. Adding that he feels his policy has been vindicated, he said, ‘Now we’ve got a roster of artists delivering records, we’re working with people who’ve obviously got great work to come.’
Many XL acts have reciprocated this admiration and praised the label and its staff, including Liam Howlett of the Prodigy. ‘It’s always about the artist with those guys,’ he said of Russell and his colleagues in January 2009. ‘That’s why they’ve survived.’
So much of his philosophy sounds like common sense. However, he feels that his simple and sensible method of operation is something that has got lost in 21st-century showbusiness. ‘Record companies work well as small units closely connected to the music, closely connected to the artists,’ he says. ‘People have got distracted from the idea that you’ve got to have great artists, you’ve got to have great music.’ Here, he positions himself as a proponent of back to basics for the music industry. He does not believe that the music industry is involved in some sort of battle with new digital technology. Fear of such innovations and what they might mean for record labels is commonplace in music business circles. Some are terrified of it, while others point out that, several decades ago, when people began to record records on to blank cassettes that was also meant to be the death knell for record labels.
Russell is not one to dwell on fear of new technology. ‘That’s a funny phrase, “Fight the internet”,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna fight the internet?’ He even, in a sense of adventure and experimentalism, undertook a dummy run of promoting some music of his own on MySpace. He recorded a song using his computer, knocked up some artwork for it and then published the package on MySpace. He noted the statistics of how many people had come to listen to his song. ‘And I was like, all right, this is fucking exciting,’ he said. So he decided to search for new acts he could potentially sign up. The first discovery he made online was Jack Penate, who he found on MySpace. No wonder Russell is excited by the potential of the internet. ‘It’s so frenetic and there is so much going on. It is the wild west out there,’ he said. ‘The whole thing is on its fucking head.’
All these developments were taking place at the same time as the quality of the British music scene was becoming ever better. As we have seen, a lot of new female acts were emerging. This was just part of what some music commentators were identifying as a quality renaissance. Russell felt that, while all time periods have their fair share of good-quality acts, these were good times indeed. ‘It’s incredible,’ he said in 2007. ‘Absolutely incredible.’ By this stage, he had discovered and signed up Adele.
Adele’s first batch of material was almost ready for release. She was actually signed in September 2006 and the story of how they found her is interesting in itself. There is an element of symbolism in the fact that, while she was at the BRIT School, one of the few times that Adele clashed with teachers was over the power of the internet. She felt that the staff were behind the times when it came to the marketing power of the worldwide web. ‘The BRIT teachers were a bit out of touch,’ she said. ‘I tried to teach them a bit about the internet, but they seemed to think everyone bought records and stuff.’ If there were any doubts in their minds about what she had told them, these would have been dispelled by the way in which she launched her own career after graduating. Here, more than ever, was compelling, unarguable proof that the web is a fertile ground for music promotion.
She recorded two demos and sent them to an online publication called Platforms Magazine. The first song was called ‘Daydreamer’, the second ‘My Same’. It was the fourth issue of Platforms Magazine, not the biggest online venture, which took the honour of being the first public space to host Adele’s music, which is a fair old boast to be able to make. ‘I used to record my demos and give them to my friends and they set me up in music MySpace,’ she said, showing how normal the process seemed at this time. One friend in particular took ownership of this process. Adele trusted him, because he was very well versed in the ways of the internet, especially social-networking websites. She nicknamed him Mr MySpace UK. What happened next was about to launch her to a proper record deal. ‘It literally kicked off from there,’ she said. She recognises that, though her talent is undeniable, there is an element of good luck in the fact she was discovered and so easily. ‘I didn’t have to face the real world – everything fell into my lap,’ she said. ‘I’ve been very fortunate.’
Suddenly, she began to be in demand. ‘I was still at school, I wasn’t doing any gigs, I wasn’t on the circuit, I didn’t know anyone and I was getting emails from record companies,’ she remembered. ‘My mate was like, “I’ve got all of these people from record companies emailing. What should I say?”’
However, far from jumping for joy as these messages appeared in her inbox, she remained grounded out of a sense of scepticism as much as caution. ‘I thought, Yeah, whatever. I didn’t believe you could get signed through MySpace.’
So, when she first set up her MySpace page, in December 2004, it was not with a sense that this move would change her life forever. In fact, MySpace
and other online social-networking sites have proved a popular forum for the launching of mainstream music careers. The most spectacular example of this comes with Sheffield indie band Arctic Monkeys, who sped from being a MySpace band to making the fastest-selling debut album of all time. The band, formed in 2002, began by playing small gigs in tiny, cramped venues. Taking that route, they could easily have imploded before being discovered properly. Then, their music began to be shared on the MySpace website. The band have said that they didn’t take an active involvement in what happened next, preferring to say that the flames of the online wildfire that built their name were all fanned by ordinary fans.
The detail is hardly important. What matters is that the Monkeys were quickly building a following online. Naturally, the music industry soon got to hear about all the fuss and began to circle in the hope of grabbing the band’s signature. And their first single, ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’, was a UK No 1 hit in 2005 and their debut album, the following year’s Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, sold more copies on its first day alone – 118,501 – than the rest of the Top 20 albums combined. They have never looked back, continuing to be a hugely popular and successful band. ‘The internet is the root of it all,’ said a publicist for the band. ‘They’re part of that generation.’
Another British act to use the internet rather than more traditional routes to promote music is Lily Allen. She had been rejected by several record labels and was on the brink of giving up on her pop dream when she decided to try posting demos of her music on MySpace. She swiftly amassed a substantial online following, as tens of thousands of people lapped up her tunes. As the media took notice of her, she secured a mainstream record deal. Millions of albums, an Ivor Novello and a Mercury prize later, Allen was a true star.
Other acts from around the world to have used the internet to launch their careers include American singer Savannah Outen, Portuguese star Mia Rose, Dutch vocalist Esmee Denters and many more. Perhaps the most spectacular beneficiary of new media in recent years is Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber. His rise to fame began when his mother filmed him singing in a local talent show and posted the footage on YouTube to share with family and friends. More and more people watched the videos which eventually came to the attention of a small online promotions group. They helped him to build his YouTube following before a young American entrepreneur called Scooter Braun saw the videos and secured young Bieber a record deal with Island Records. Even once signed, Bieber continued to use the internet as his primary promotional tool. His Twitter following is now into its millions and it is there that he communicates and connects with his fanatical, global teenage fanbase. A online presence can be potent: by keeping his original YouTube channel and Twitter account running, Bieber builds in his fans a sense that it is they who have made him and taken him to the top. That sense of ownership builds fierce loyalty, the results of which can be seen in the gargantuan size of his hysterical following.
Bieber had yet to appear on the scene when Adele was signed via MySpace. She hadn’t seen evidence that the effect of the online world could be translated into solid success. However, that was exactly what was about to happen. ‘I didn’t know that MySpace was that influential at the time,’ she said. ‘Then Lily Allen and Arctic Monkeys were on there and it blew up.’
XL Recordings were watching and listening and they loved what they had heard of her. The song that stood out for them was ‘Hometown Glory’, the song she had written when she was 16. The song’s political slant appealed to the staff of a label which appreciated acts who wrote songs with messages – though, if they expected such social commentary to be a regular feature of her songs in the future, they were to be disappointed.
Adele says that it took her just ten minutes to write ‘Hometown Glory’. Impressive stuff: that’s less than three times the time it takes to hear the finished product. And it was composed when she was just 16. The song has a haunting and melancholy tune, the powerful emotions of which remain long after the track has finished. As love songs to cities go, it is a far from sunny one. As mentioned, she launches into politics in the song, about how the government and the people take different sides. The people are united, she sings, not going to take anything lying down. Given the political slant of the song, it sounded like it could have been written in the 1980s. Her admiration for Billy Bragg, the politico folk singer of that decade, was easy to spot in this song. Indeed, the Style Council – Paul Weller’s soulful, at times eccentric, 1980s combo – would have loved a song such as this. The section about people protesting was influenced by her experiences of the huge protest marches against the Iraq war. ‘It was just such a moment, to see all these people come together to stand against something,’ she says. ‘There were these mohawk punks next to rude-boy kids in hoodies. It was great to be a part of.
‘I wrote “Hometown…” on the guitar … and it was actually the first song I ever wrote from start to finish. It was kind of about me and my mum not agreeing on where I should go to university. Because, though at first I’d wanted to go to Liverpool, later I changed my mind and wanted to go to university in London. But, because I love being at home and I’m really dependent on my mum, she still wanted me to go to Liverpool so that I’d have to learn how to do things on my own, rather than still be coming home for dinner, having her do my washing and stuff like that. So in that way it was a kind of protest song about cherishing the memories –whether good or bad – of your hometown. Whereas – having only been to Liverpool about twice – there’s nothing there that comforts me, here in London, even if I’m having a really shit day there’s still something I love about the place. So really, yeah, in general it is an ode to the place where I’ve always lived.’ In short, the song, she said, contained ‘all my fondest memories of London’.
The song might have been written in response to pressure from her mother for Adele to leave London and go to university elsewhere but Penny has since agreed that Adele made the right decision in staying in the capital and pursuing her musical dream. ‘She’s over the moon!’ said Adele. ‘She was like, “Get a job, get a job” for so long and I was like, “No… I can’t be bothered!” Then I went and got a record deal and all this happened and now I’m definitely allowed to stay in London.’
Indeed, it was this very first song that captured the imagination of XL Recordings. So impressed were they with her demos that they emailed her and asked her to come to their offices for a meeting. For a while, she ignored their message. She had not heard of the label and was unaware of their impressive and artistically brilliant track record. Back at XL, they must have wondered why she was proving unresponsive. Perhaps, they might have wondered, she had already been signed by another label.
‘I didn’t realise they did all these amazing names,’ said Adele of this period of silence. The only label she really recognised at this stage was Richard Branson’s Virgin Records. ‘When I was getting enquiries, I didn’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know who to believe. I didn’t know if they were genuine.’ She assumed that the best thing that could have come from a meeting would be an offer of an internship. So she took a friend along when she went to meet XL. You can’t be too careful, she later said she had reasoned, when meeting somebody you have only known over the internet. ‘I made my guitarist, Ben, come along to my first meeting with XL Recordings,’ she said. ‘He’s puny, Ben, looks like a dwarf, but I’d never heard of XL so I thought I might be on my way to meet an internet perv or something.’
XL convinced her they were the real deal and it was then time to find Adele a manager. ‘The first person who told me about Adele was actually the guy that eventually ended up signing her, Nick Huggett, who was at XL at that time,’ said Jonathan Dickins, the man who would end up managing Adele. ‘He said I should check this girl out. I just got a Myspace URL.’
Jonathan Dickins comes from a family steeped in music history. The black-haired, east Londoner’s grandfather, Percy Dickins, was the co-
founder of the music weekly New Musical Express, and in 1952 he came up with the idea of a pop music chart based on record sales. Before Dickins, popularity had been worked out on the basis of sales of sheet music. Meanwhile, Jonathan’s uncle was the chairman of Warner Brothers in the UK for many years and his father is a booking agent who has worked with a galaxy of stars including Bob Dylan, Diana Ross and Neil Young.
As the younger Dickins himself said, the music industry was his family trade: ‘It’s all I knew.’ He wanted to follow in their footsteps but bided his time as he looked for his own niche. ‘I was very conscious of trying to make my own career in music and not follow in their footsteps – not doing the same things as they did, but hopefully being successful in my own sphere of the music industry,’ he told the Hit Quarters website. After working in A&R, he eventually opted for artist management and in 2006 started his own company, September Management. He retains his enthusiasm for his job partly through having a policy of only working with artists whose music he himself loves. ‘I still do it the old-fashioned way,’ he said. ‘I always go with a gut feeling: would I buy it; would I listen to it?’ His own manager heroes include David Geffen and Elliot Roberts, and as part of his philosophy of music management he believes that the best way to break a new act is via live concerts. He thinks that radio and other routes are less dependable, though he is forever open-minded, analysing changes in the industry.
When he met Adele, he decided he wanted to work with her. As much as anything else, this decision was based on a simple incident: he made her laugh. ‘Literally stomach cramps the day after,’ she said.
For him, this decision was clear-cut. ‘It was the most simple, straightforward thing I’ve ever done in my life, really.’ What a promising start to what has become a strong and important relationship for both. ‘We had one meeting and just got on great,’ he said. They discussed music and which artists they enjoyed. Adele was swung in part due to the presence in his roster of one of her favourite acts. ‘She was a massive fan of Jamie T. She was 18, just out of college, and wanted to make a career in music. We started working together in early June 2006 and eventually we signed her to XL in the end of September 2006.’
Adele Page 5
