Adele

by Chas Newkey-Burden

  In the introductions round, in which two contestants do their best to give a vocalised rendition of the start of a song so the third team member can guess what it is, Adele and Ronson were to sing Nerd’s ‘Lapdance’ to Minchin. ‘I can’t pretend I’m an instrument,’ Adele protested when Amstell teased her about her vocal performance during her intro. Finally, when they came to the mystery line-ups – in which contestants try to identify a forgotten musical personality from a line-up including four lookalikes – Adele at last delivered a little of the controversy that Amstell had been hoping for. The panel began to discuss Lindsay Lohan, then the partner of Ronson’s sister Samantha. When Ronson said he thought Lohan was ‘a really talented actress,’ Adele looked shocked. ‘What?’ she asked with humorous indignation. ‘I think she’s lovely, but she not an actress,’ she added with one of her roaring laughs.

  In truth, it has normally been a hard task to get Adele to be rude about other female singers. The rivalry that the media hopes to stir up between female singers is largely nonexistent. True, there are occasional spats and criticisms, but in the main – from Adele at least – there has been more promotion of a sisterhood in mutual support. ‘I don’t really need to stand out, there’s room for everyone,’ she said in 2008. ‘Although I haven’t built a niche yet, I’m just writing love songs.’ Love songs that were proving popular across the world. As well as reaching UK No 1, 19 was a Top 10 hit in many countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and Norway. It was also selling well in that golden market where so many other massive British acts have spectacularly failed.

  Adele was proving a hit in America.

  chapter five

  an american dream

  the list of hit machines who have failed to translate their enormous worldwide popularity into the States is not only long but also contains some prestigious names. From the UK the likes of Sir Cliff Richard, Marc Bolan, Take That, Robbie Williams, Busted, Oasis and Ms Dynamite failed there, as did Irish neighbours Westlife. Most recently, Cheryl Cole has had to take an early flight home, after her plan to launch herself there as an X Factor judge, solo star and all-round celebrity fell at the first hurdle. Even the pop queen that is Kylie Minogue has found America a tricky proposition. There are so many hurdles to jump, including the soul-destroying, lengthy promotional tours of radio stations and endless meets-and-greets that involve weeks on the road with little guarantee of a positive outcome. Indeed, it is fair to say that there is a good chance that such acts will not break America, but rather America will break them.

  No wonder that British acts who have found fame in America are therefore a rarity. The most obvious examples remain the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. These acts have one crucial and simple thing in common in this regard: their material is, essentially, American music. It was why Amy Winehouse did so well there. The US market has long enjoyed having its sounds sung back to it by outside artists. Given the nature of her sound, Adele was in a stronger position than most to crack America. Still, there were no guarantees and, given that Adele was a wise, cautious and realistic artist, she took nothing for granted about any market, least of all the American one.

  Her first north American tour began in March 2008. It would include promotional commitments such as those inevitable radio interviews and also live performances. Among the latter were slots at Joe’s Pub in New York, and the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles. Then came a fusion of promotional commitment with live performance at the SXSW music conference and festival in Austin, Texas. It was Joe’s Pub, though, that constituted her first significant live outing in America. The venue brought with it a certain symbolism, for it was there that Amy Winehouse made her first ever live performance in America. It has quite a reputation, rated widely as one of the best small music venues in the world. Publications and outlets from the Village Voice to Newsweek and BBC radio have all given it sufficient praise for it to attain legendary status. It is the sort of place where the barrier between artist and audience is so slight as to be almost non-existent. As Alicia Keys, who has played there, said, ‘You get all the sweat and heat from the performances’. A fitting place for Adele.

  She looked relaxed and composed as she took to the stage, though the nerves became clear in time. She even apologised between songs, saying that she was suffering from a heavy cold. She started her Joe’s Pub gig with ‘Daydreamer’ and the ten-song set continued with ‘Crazy For You’ and other tracks, before concluding with an emotional rendition of ‘Hometown Glory’. She had her eyes closed during much of the performance and her anxiety was hard to deny. Yet she needn’t have worried. One online music reviewer wrote that the short set was so entrancing that it flew past. He added that the performance ‘pretty much showed why she’s the real deal and no trendy, flash in the pan. By far, she is the best new voice in music on both sides of the Atlantic.’ He also noted, with approval, her personality, observing of her patter between the songs, ‘She’s just a big goof-ball with a thick British accent.’

  She played a second show at Joe’s Pub and then just 24 hours later she was on the west coast of America, playing at the Hotel Cafe. Dressed in a characteristically dramatic black outfit, she sang beautifully and put in a stellar performance in front of a packed house. Many of those present rated the show as the best they had seen in their lives. Recordings of her songs that night have become popular among fans. She then played two shows in Canada, at the Cabaret in Montreal and the Rivoli in Toronto.

  Then there was more promotional business to be undertaken back in the US. It would involve lots of travelling and work, but Adele left in a determined mood. ‘She wants to work it properly and put in time there,’ XL’s Richard Russell told Billboard. ‘People are really excited about her over there.’ They were excited about British acts in general, particularly female soul singers. Among the other popular names in the US at the time were the likes of Corrine Bailey Rae and Duffy, and Joss Stone was also going down something of a storm. Lily Allen, too, had received some recognition. Adele noted the achievement of other Brits in America and was only too happy to follow the trend. ‘I’m very proud to be a part of it,’ she said. ‘I’m very pleased to be riding the wave.’

  The appeal of UK acts had not always been entirely about the music. Given the growth in political correctness in America, the UK’s often more outspoken and rough-around-the-edges artists bring something new and exciting to the market. The likes of Amy Winehouse and Adele in particular were unpredictable, opinionated and have – to differing extents – openly hedonistic lifestyles. In the land of American Idol and other reality shows and Disney-friendly pop, this is a breath of fresh air. This is not true of everyone. It is to the eternal credit of Leona Lewis that she has succeeded in America even though her image and personality are far from fiery. In her case, her immense talent simply outweighs all else.

  Adele was aware that launching herself in the US brought with it new challenges but she was also of the opinion that there were advantages to how things worked there. ‘Well, obviously the US is a lot bigger and there is a little more work involved,’ she said. ‘There’s politics: if you do one thing, you can’t do another thing. You don’t do this and you won’t get that. That stuff doesn’t exist in the UK. I guess because there are so many different kinds of markets in the US, you need to define your niche. I think that’s probably it.’ She was completely correct. It’s been said that a British star is more likely to win the lottery than to successfully break the American market. Yet Adele, far from being overwhelmed by the scale of the task ahead, actually felt that in America there was more focus on talent rather than more superficial things. ‘You can’t go to America and be shit. You could have an amazing figure and they won’t buy it,’ she said. It is talent alone that matters there. ‘I could wear a bin liner and they’d still like me.’

  The prospects were indeed soon looking very promising. As her bookings and commitments continued, on-stage she was in fine form. She sometimes changed the lyrics
to ‘Chasing Pavements’, altering the key word to ‘sidewalks’. The fans were loving her and one night they presented her with a bouquet of flowers and a card that thanked her for ‘staying true’ and wished her well for the future. During one concert she interrupted her song mid-verse to ask if she could have a margarita. One night, she had more than a few drinks and ended up beyond tipsy on the tour bus. She slurred her words and sat with a woolly hat, lopsided, on her head. ‘Amy Winehouse: eat your heart out.’ Captured on camera for release on a bonus disc, it made for a cute filmed document of a fun and exciting adventure for our heroine.

  That said, she still needed to work hard in order to fully bring such a vital audience on her side. She also missed home a lot. ‘[The experience was] amazing – but also really difficult because I’d never been away from home that long ever in my life,’ she said. Asked how she found the relentless promotional work involved with cracking America, she replied honestly, ‘Horrible – hate it.’ She then laughingly said that she had tried to kill herself twice, such was the pressure. With a smile, she added, ‘Only joking. It all helps… all helps.’ Chief among the challenges of the tour, she explained, was the fact she was sharing a tour bus with ‘six stinky guys’. One of the motels they stayed in had cockroaches and then there was the day that the tour-bus toilet got blocked with tissue paper. Then, after playing the David Letterman Show in Manhattan, she was approached and then chased by the paparazzi. She hid in a secluded Russian vodka bar. ‘Four hours later I emerged… Oh my, I was flying down Broadway, very drunk,’ she said. A creative, and fun, solution to the pressures of fame, typical of Adele.

  As she told Digital Spy, the television commitments over in the US confused her a bit. Firstly, she did not appreciate right away the high calibre of the shows she had been booked on. Then, she got mixed up over whether she was recording live or part of a pre-record. ‘Yeah, I did Letterman and the Today Show,’ she told Digital Spy. ‘I had no idea what they were the equivalent to because obviously we don’t have them here. I was like, “What’s the Today Show?” and they were like, “Imagine GMTV but on a much bigger scale.” It was live and there were like 50 million people watching so I literally just shat myself! Letterman was pre-recorded so I wasn’t quite as nervous, but I forgot that during my performance. I got halfway through the song and couldn’t remember whether it was live or not. Look it up on YouTube – you’ll see my face just drop!’

  There were perks to make up for the stress along the way, including her finding and buying a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes of the kind featured in an episode of Sex and the City. The fashion fan was absolutely chuffed: ‘I’ve been looking for these for three years.’ Sometimes, she said, she needed humouring to keep her energy up. Other times, though, she was providing the humour herself. She saw the funny side when a hotel booked her and her tour manager into a room with just one kingsize bed. When they stopped off in Portland, she said it was ‘just like Croydon’. When she saw someone scrambling for deserted cigarette butts on the pavement outside a venue, she recalled a similar experience herself. Her mother had refused to give her a cigarette, and she was craving some nicotine so much that she ended up looking for butts. At first in her story, she painted her mother as the villain of the piece, then admitted, ‘But then I was 13 or 14.’

  As well as bringing her own music to the performances, she also tried some cover versions. Among these was an imaginative cover of ‘Last Night’, by Manhattan indie giants the Strokes. Her cover started in a slow, blues style that scarcely resembled the lively, rocking song. However, one verse in, the full band kicked in replicating the sound of the original. It was an unexpected choice of cover, yet she did it justice, managing to combine both originality and familiarity in a very well-known song.

  Despite her belief that she could wear a bin liner for all anyone in America cared, she could not escape questions about her appearance. With many of her promotional engagements and live performances taking place in big, hip cities on the east and west coasts of America, it was perhaps inevitable that talk would once more turn to Adele’s weight. After all, in cities such as Los Angeles and New York, many people are extremely conscious of their appearance. One does not have to stroll far down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue or LA’s Sunset Strip to see plenty of women who are stick thin as a fashion statement rather than looking natural. So Adele was expecting questions about her own appearance. ‘I knew people would ask me – especially here with the whole Hollywood thing – if I felt pressure to lose weight,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it is important. I think it used to be more important, and I think there are aspects of it now where people will talk about what you look like, not what you’re doing. I made a record. I don’t want to be on the front cover of Playboy. I want to be on the front cover of Rolling Stone with my clothes on.’ She soon would be.

  On her return, she spoke enthusiastically about her time abroad. Here again, she said, the internet had played an important role in spreading word of her. ‘Amazing – and it’s all so unexpected,’ she said when asked to sum up how the tour had gone. ‘I was a bit scared when my American agent said he was going to put me on a 15-date tour over there but, thanks to the power of the internet, people showed up at my gigs and knew all the words and it all went amazingly.’ To celebrate her return to Britain and to officially shrug off the extra responsibilities and pressures she had been under there, she went out partying in London with her oldest mates. With them, in her home city, Adele could be herself again. It was a great way to return to normality and, as ever, to concentrate on keeping her feet on the ground. She had missed her friends, she admitted. ‘I love my friends so much that I do get quite moody when I’m away from them,’ she told Digital Spy. ‘It was five weeks this time which is quite a long time, but the shows were so good that it made up for missing them.’

  On 10 June, she would be able to gauge how much of an impact her American tour had made when her album 19 was officially released over there. But it would only be later in the year that it truly captured the US public’s imagination. As it was, in 2008, she cancelled a series of commitments in America after problems and tensions in her private life made her feel unable to travel abroad. She had really missed home during her first travels in America, saying she was on her knees with homesickness. But it would be another year before she felt able to discuss what happened. ‘We refer to that period as my ELC, my Early Life Crisis,’ she explained. Her use of the third person to describe herself was no coincidence. Using the plural, she said, allowed her to feel less vulnerable and exposed. Even with the passage of a year, she still felt uncomfortable and embarrassed by the cancellation. ‘Now I’m sober, I’m like, “I can’t believe I did that.” It seems so ungrateful.’ What she said really haunted her was not that she had possibly blown her chance of making her dreams come true. Instead, she felt the burden of having thrown away ‘everyone’s dream’.

  Expanding on the ‘crisis’ that led to her cancellation, she added, ‘I was drinking far too much and that was kind of the basis of my relationship with this boy. I couldn’t bear to be without him, so I was like, “Well, OK, I’ll just cancel my stuff then.”’ She knew that this caused enormous problems and discomfort, but insisted there was no other option. ‘I got in trouble for wasting people’s time but I was desperately unhappy,’ she said. It was not just American dates that were cancelled as part of Adele’s ‘ELC’ and nor was it her relationship that was the sole cause of it. She just felt she was starting to miss out on real life. The bubble of success brought with it a lot of fun, plenty of fame and no shortage of fortune but she missed something more important: friendship. ‘It had got to the stage where friends would call, and I’d be working in Norway or somewhere and they’d ask me to come round and I’d get annoyed that they didn’t know I was abroad,’ she said. ‘So for three months I went to the pub, barbecues, saw my cousins.’

  At the same time, Adele found it hard to step off the promotional and professional treadmill. Suddenly, she had spac
e and time again. Having demanded it, she then found she was not sure what to do with it. ‘I told everyone not to call me for six months as I was turning my phone off,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t even going to have a Blackberry. I was going to have a Nokia pay-as-you-go. But within a few days I was like, What am I meant to be doing? It was really weird going from being so busy and having a schedule to having to rely on yourself again to organise things.’

  Whatever the different motivations behind the cancellation, the message that Adele was sending out was clear. Here, she was drawing a line in the sand and declaring that she was a free person and not to be used by her management or record company. ‘I can’t be a product; no one can do that to me,’ she said. ‘I have all the say. I have power over everything I do.’ We were back to the Adele of her childhood: the strong-willed girl who demanded to be in control and this was the attitude that would serve her well. She already had cause to feel cautious optimism about the early sales of 19 in the US. She said she viewed its performance as ‘an underground thing’.

  In November 2008, Adele had been booked to appear on the hit American television show Saturday Night Live after a producer from the show saw her perform live in Manhattan. Although an appearance on SNL is a big deal for any artist, she could not have predicted what would happen. ‘It was just meant to be like a normal show,’ she said. ‘Then we walked in on Saturday and Sarah Palin was there!’

  The vice-presidential candidate chosen by Republican John McCain, Palin was a contentious figure from the off.

  Her image as a hockey mom – a tough, family woman – her stringent right-wing opinions and attitudes, together with a questionable grasp of geopolitics, made her a divisive, much-discussed and oft-mocked public figure. While many conservatively minded Americans admired her, more metropolitan and Democrat-supporting people thought she was at worst dangerous, at best ridiculous.