Adele

by Chas Newkey-Burden

  A criteria that he uses to help him decide whether or not to work with an act includes how focused they are on what they want from their own career. ‘One thing that every great artist has is a clear sense of what they are and what they want to achieve,’ he said. ‘That’s absolutely essential for me.’ This is something that Adele impressed him with. ‘This business is completely and utterly driven by great artists, not by managers, lawyers, record companies, or radio.’ In Adele, he had indeed found a great artist, as well as one whose personality would always want to be in the driving seat. She is no shrinking violet, content to stand on the sidelines. ‘Adele is incredible,’ he said in the early days of her success. ‘For a girl who’s just turned 20 years old, it’s unbelievable how focused she is in terms of what she thinks is right for her career,’ he said. ‘So, I listened and threw in some ideas, and generally it just clicked. It wasn’t about me going, “This is what I can do, blah, blah, blah…” I try to let the artist take the lead with matters now.’

  However, her future management needed to be sure that the voice in the demo songs was really something as special as it seemed. So a concert was arranged in Brixton for them to hear her voice in full flow in person. Once they had heard her, they were ready to sign. ‘The key to great singers is believing every single word they sing,’ said Dickins of the wider authenticity of his new artist. ‘And I think you believe every word that comes out of Adele’s mouth.’

  The label were impressed by Adele’s personality as well as by her talent. ‘She had an extremely strong idea of what she wanted to do,’ Russell said. ‘I don’t think you get that from BRIT School. You get that when you have great instincts.’ Discussing the early material they worked on with Adele, Russell found one theme that was common to many singers of her generation. ‘It’s very hard to find anything that is not influenced by black American music, in one way or another,’ he said. ‘Everything is rooted back to the blues. What we’ve seen in the UK is an amazing wealth of talent shared by young female solo artists and there’s maybe an unspoken competition there. There’s something about her voice. It connects to you very directly. Her subject matter – being hurt – she talks about it in a way that’s so easy to relate to. It’s very honest. She’s incredibly focused… That focus is only as useful as it has been to her in combination with the talent she was born with.’

  It was, said Adele – who was worth around £6 million by 2011 – a modest initial record deal. Off the back of it, she only made one notable lifestyle change. ‘I used to smoke rollies but then I got the record deal and switched to Marlboro Lights.’ Great riches were just around the corner. As she came to terms with the fact she was now a musician proper, with a recording contract and high hopes for the future, she took time to look back into her past, and credit those she saw as having given her the most assistance: the staff and facilities of the BRIT School. ‘While at first I was very like “I ain’t going here! It’s a stage school! I can do it on my own!”, I think I do owe it completely to the BRIT School for making me who I am today, as cheesy and embarrassing at it may sound. Because, while my mum is the most supportive mum on earth, she wouldn’t have known how to channel me. With her I’d probably have gone down the classical music route or maybe Disney or musical theatre… But at the BRIT School I found my direction, because the music course was really wicked.’

  She was still keen to draw a contrast between BRIT and the image of theatrical schools that is more prevalent in popular imagination. ‘It’s not your typical stage school full of kids that are pushed into it by their parents. It’s a school full of kids that will dance at a freezing-cold town hall, barefoot, for eight hours solid. And, whereas before I was going to a school with bums and kids that were rude and wanted to grow up and mug people, it was really inspiring to wake up every day to go to school with kids that actually wanted to be productive at something and wanted to be somebody.’ She felt that her early days in the industry proper were comparable in some senses to the atmosphere of the BRIT School. She stepped, she said, directly ‘from the bubble of the BRIT School straight into another bubble’. There was no intermediary period. When lots of people her age would be looking ahead to university, or starting work in offices, shops and factories, or simply immersing themselves in a period of laziness, she was moving straight from education into the music industry. She could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed, which she did. Later in life, she might go on to take a step aside from music to enjoy a belated gap year. But, back then, having written just three songs, she had the attention of major record labels, one of which had signed her. Yet as exciting as these developments were, there was a feeling of low confidence for Adele as she found her feet in her new world. For nearly a year, she did not write another song. During those months, she said, ‘the future wasn’t looking bright for me’.

  Things began to look far brighter in June 2007 when Adele made her first television appearance on Later… with Jools Holland. This brought back memories for her of being allowed to stay up late as a child, watching the live music show with her mother Penny. She went on to say she could hardly believe she was there. For her to appear on Later… at such a tender age was remarkable enough in itself, but the true wonder is that she was invited to do so before she had any release to her name. She sang ‘Daydreamer’ with just her acoustic guitar as accompaniment. The quirky Holland announced her with a simple sentence: ‘Making her TV debut, will you welcome from Brixton… Adele.’

  It was a catchy, if slightly nervous performance. Her nerves were understandable. Not only was she thrown into the deep end of television, having never so much as dipped her toes in previously, but she was also surrounded by music royalty. ‘They usually put you in the middle of the room, but for some reason they put me at the end, right in front of the audience, with Björk on my left, Paul McCartney on my right and my mum crying in front of me,’ she said. ‘I met them afterwards and couldn’t stop crying.’

  As far as the Later… team was concerned, Adele had passed the test with flying colours. ‘We sandwiched her between Sir Paul McCartney and Björk before she’d even released a record,’ confirmed a producer. ‘But like any confident, self-assured, sassy 19-year-old, south London girl, it didn’t faze her one bit.’ So how had they decided to book Adele at such an early point in her career? ‘When we fall for somebody, we have to have them,’ said Later… producer Alison Howe. ‘She’s a classic. She doesn’t fit anywhere; she just has a great voice. I would hope that, by this time next year, she will have sold as many records as Amy [Winehouse], and I don’t see why she shouldn’t.’

  Her performance was not flawless. The BBC website would in due course say it had been ‘brim with nervous caterwauling’. But it had been good enough to win her a new army of fans from among the 600,000-odd musical devotees who regularly tune in to Later… The media championing of Adele began in earnest. Other early journalistic admirers included the Guardian, BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe and Q magazine. Soon, the NME would describe her as ‘London’s new heartbroken soul laureate’.

  She was already in a strong position before the release of her first single on 22 October 2007. Even some successful acts had to release several records before they attained the profile she already had. ‘Hometown Glory’ was initially a vinyl-only release on Jamie T’s Pacemaker label. It was first released this way in keeping with a vow Adele had made to him. ‘He was like, “But you promised I could put out ‘Hometown’ back in the day…”’ she said. Weeks before its release, it was being played to radio listeners. It had been playlisted at Radio 1 on the B list and Radio 2 on the C list, meaning it got regular on-air spins.

  Dickins was pleasantly surprised by these significant developments. ‘The expectations around this single from our point of view were not huge, although we obviously think it’s a great bit of music,’ he said at the time. ‘It’s amazing how well it’s done in terms of being picked up by press and radio. It’s really just a brief introduction, before her first single is released o
n XL next January.’

  The sleeve for the release featured Adele sitting reflectively in a cafe. Two members of the waiting staff, decked in white uniform, are chatting in the background but Adele is sitting thinking, with a tea cup sitting on the table in front of her. As the Observer newspaper later put it: ‘A certain tone had been established.’

  The public response was promising from the start. For the B-side, she chose to record a cover of ‘Fool That I Am’ by favourite singer Etta James. She had originally become interested in the song because she wanted to add something to her live performances. ‘I felt I needed to beef up my live set by introducing covers, I decided to include “Fool That I Am” in my show,’ she said. ‘You know, it was a song that just changed everything for me. It inspired me to want to write my own songs, to be honest and to try and touch people. Basically, I think it’s a beautiful song, I love singing it… And so I thought it would be nice for my fans if I included it on this single.’

  On the Rock Feedback website, writer Chris O’Toole heaped praise on Adele. He said that she ‘sings with accomplishment and passion and could bring a tear to the eye of the most hardened cynic’. Turning specifically to ‘Hometown Glory’, he attempted to put the song in what he saw as its correct context. ‘The fire has burned down to the final embers. You have hit the bottom of the final bottle of corner-shop wine. The lady you are failing to seduce is reaching for her coat and asking you to call a cab. You reach for “Hometown Glory” and perhaps, just maybe, everything will work out.’

  Sarah Walters, on City Life website, described the song as: ‘Soulful – if a little lacking in direction.’ She added, ‘There’s still enough room for Adele to shine as a unique star.’

  The song failed to chart on its first release, but due to the fact such a limited edition of vinyl had been pressed this was inevitable. It is a song that was to subsequently benefit from inclusion on the soundtracks of several high-profile television series. In April 2008, it was featured on the popular Channel 4 teenage drama series Skins. It captured the mood of the programme and the imaginations of those who watched it. It soon re-entered the charts. Within weeks, it was included on the American teenage drama One Tree Hill. As well as earning Adele royalties in its own right, this development also introduced her music to millions of hip young Americans. However, an even more significant television exposure for the song was just around the corner.

  The American medical television series Grey’s Anatomy regularly pulls in audience figures of around 20 million in America. It has also won numerous awards and is watched by millions more around the world. To have a song included in the soundtrack of an episode is a huge deal for any artist. So, when ‘Hometown Glory’ was played during the finale of season four, it was a major boost for Adele’s fledgling career. The song had been chosen after Alexandra Patsavas, who has worked as a music selector for countless big television series in America, went to see Adele sing at the Hotel Cafe near Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. She loved the song and knew it could fit in well. She spoke to her friend Jonathan Palmer from Columbia and soon the song was slotted into the series.

  The television suitability of ‘Hometown Glory’ became all the more clear when it showed up on a raft of other television series back in Britain during 2008. In the second half of the year, it was included three times in the long-running Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks. It seemed a song that was perfect to the soundtrack of fictional young lives and the heartache and challenges of life. For instance, it was used on Hollyoaks during an episode in which one of the show’s most popular characters died. Other shows it appeared on during 2008 included The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and the American reality show So You Think You Can Dance. As we shall see, this would not be the end of its cultural influence on television and beyond.

  By the summer of 2008, the song had been re-released properly – and Adele’s life was changing fast. ‘I went overnight from being a support act to every newspaper writing stories about me,’ she said. Her introduction to fame was abrupt and she explained how it felt being thrown into the proverbial deep end. ‘I did one interview and it went everywhere. The first time you get quoted out of context is the scariest thing. You can’t remember what you said but you think, I would never say that… Did I say that?’

  It had been ‘Hometown Glory’ that had grabbed the attention and her manager analysed how quickly she became popular and successful. He believed it was a simple case of quality being rewarded. He eschewed any explanations that go far beyond that. ‘She’s just brilliant; I don’t think there’s any science to it,’ he said. ‘She is possibly the best singer, or one of the best singers, I’ve ever heard in my life. That voice is incredible. A combination of that voice with a song like “Hometown Glory”, which was the song that really started her, was incredible – it completely and utterly stood out.’

  Standing out was exactly what Adele was starting to do, as awareness of her talent swept Britain like an unstoppable, and increasingly fierce, fire.

  To help her with the transition, she not only had her management and record company but also a growing army of creative friends. In 2006, she had met singer and label-mate Jack Penate at the 333 club in London’s Hoxton, at a night called Troubled Mind, and they became good buddies. She went on to work with him, and for his part he could not have been more appreciative of her natural, raw talent. She has twice contributed backing vocals on Penate tracks. The first was on ‘My Yvonne’ on his 2007 debut Matinee. The second occasion was in 2009 and came about very casually. ‘Adele was in Notting Hill and I just phoned her and said, “Can you do this song?”’ he said. ‘As always, she came in and killed it. Her voice always makes such an impact on anything because it’s the most beautiful thing.’

  She also hit it off with respected music producer and industry royalty Mark Ronson. She had been a fan of the musical genius since 2003, when he released the Here Comes the Fuzz album. He invited her to New York where he showed her round his favourite haunts.

  ‘Mark is so funny,’ she said. ‘I always think he’s about 24, but he’s 32. He’s old!’

  Adele assembled a group of people around her which has since become known as Team Adele and been lauded for the brilliance of its operation. There is a family feel to the group, both metaphorically in the sense of its closeness, and literally, given that Dickins’ sister Lucy joined its ranks. ‘I met her separately from Jonathan and loved her and didn’t put two and two together,’ said Adele. ‘I went to him and said, “I’ve found this agent. Her name’s Lucy Dickins.” He said, “Oh, yeah, that’s my sister.”’

  Kirk Sommer of William Morris, the giant entertainment agency, also joined the ranks. ‘I heard her name in a few key places and tracked down some music online,’ Sommer told a trade music magazine. ‘It was love at first listen. I got in touch with Jonathan and pursued it for several months. I stayed on it, and the more I listened, the more eager I was to work with her.’

  Brad Hunner is another key part of Team Adele. He is a hardworking radio plugger who works for an organisation called Radar Plugging. Given the enormous on-air presence that Adele swiftly established, his contribution cannot be doubted. Radio play is key in breaking a pop artist, even in these days of online marketing and digital downloads. Hunner did Adele proud, breaking her name to national radio stations long before she had released a record. Hunner had previously worked for Anglo Plugging, but in 2006 he launched his new independent radio promotion agency. It was based at the XL Recordings office in Notting Hill, taking him into the heart of the operation that was about to launch Adele to the world. On his arrival there, the XL managing director Ben Beardsworth said Hunner’s presence would ‘step things up’.

  When these fine minds and safe pairs of hands came together to mastermind Adele’s career, it wasn’t just the singer herself who benefited. While the massive record sales that she has generated have naturally been to the advantage of Adele, her management and record label, the entire music industry has been delivered
a much-needed shot in the arm by the triumph. A hit machine such as Adele is exactly what it had been hoping for. The confidence that music business people such as Russell have in modern technology is to a large extent vindicated by her achievements. Two of the biggest-selling artists of recent times were both discovered via the internet: Adele and Justin Bieber. The many millions of records these two very different artists have sold worldwide are stark proof that the internet can be the best friend, rather than the enemy, of the mainstream music business.

  As 2007 drew to a close, Adele could not have doubted that she had an amazing year ahead of her. In October, she had been the subject of the Guardian’s Flash Forward feature. In the text, Sarah Boden noted Adele’s talent and the fact that she made for an unlikely soul singer. ‘With her milky-soft complexion, feline sooty eyes and sixties girl-group hairdo, the 19-year-old doesn’t look much like a soul crooner,’ wrote Boden.

  Two months later, Adele received some sensational news. She was in the running for the first ever critics’ choice award at the next Brit awards ceremony. Over a thousand music industry insiders and critics had selected her for the award, specifically created to highlight those acts expected to break through in the year of the ceremony. She had been up against some tough competition. The other acts in the frame included Oxford sensations Foals and the Welsh soul and jazz singer Duffy.

  As a result of this honour, the media was beginning to really take notice of Adele. In the eyes of those who already admired her, she was getting the attention she so richly deserved. There were some detractors who thought she had been overhyped. The coverage was inescapable, and even Adele herself reacted, with typical humour, when she learned that she had been featured in the Daily Mail, that bastion of middle-market, middle-England media. ‘The Daily Mail? I’m in the posh papers! I read the Sun.’