Adele recently announced her latest single, “Easy on Me,” via a black and white video on her Instagram and it’ll hit the airwaves on October 15th. The British singer has been in the scene for over a decade and this new song will be the latest in her music catalog.
Humble Beginnings
Adele was born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins in London, England where she was raised by a single mother — her parents divorced when she was only two years old. During her childhood, she liked to sing contemporary pop music and learned to play two instruments — the guitar and the clarinet. She began considering a music career when she
discovered blues singer Etta James. She worked on her talents at The London School for Performing Arts & Technology, otherwise known as The Brit School for Performing Arts & Technology. This is the same school that various British musicians attended, including Jessie J and Amy Winehouse. According to Celeb Answers, the singer enrolled in the school in 2002 with the intention of taking up A&R and talent managing as a career.
The Come up
During her four years at The Brit School, she recorded a three-song demo for a class project. A friend of Adele’s uploaded the demo onto Myspace and it essentially went viral with 10,000 plays. The demo’s virality caught the attention of executives at XL Recordings.
These executives contacted her and they were initially interested in giving her an A&R job. Upon arriving at the label, they told her they wanted to sign instead. Not only were they impressed with her demo, the record label boss, Richard Russel, had seen her perform and he liked her confidence as a performer.
Four months after graduating from The Brit School, in November 2006, XL Recordings officially signed her to a record deal.
First Performances and her album debut
Upon signing with XL, Adele began to work on her debut album. During this time, she made her first television appearance in 2007 on BBC’s “Later…with Jools Holland,” where she performed “Daydreamer.” In the same year, she performed at Glastonbury, playing an acoustic set.
Her debut album, “19,” was released in 2008. The title refers to Adele’s age when she wrote most of the album’s songs. The album went to number one on the British album chart, and many critics compared her to Amy Winehouse.
She performed on Saturday Night Live soon after, which helped introduce the British singer to American audiences. The next year, in 2009, she won a Grammy for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her song, “Chasing Pavements.”
Sophomore Album and more success
“21” was released three years later in 2011 with two top-charting songs: “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You.” Both songs went to number one in several countries and the album became the biggest-selling release in 2011 in both United States and the United Kingdom.
The album won the 2012 Grammy for Album of the Year as well as the Brit Award for British Album of the Year. She won five other awards at the 2012 Grammys, including both Record and Song of the Year for “Rolling in the Deep.” A year later, she won the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance for her single, “Set Fire to the Rain.”
THose Vocal cords, though
Adele had to cancel several tour dates in 2011 due to her vocal cords being damaged. According to CBS News, she had a polyp on her vocal cord that hemorrhaged — she was performing on French radio when her voice gave out. Polyps are like vocal cord nodules, but they tend to have more blood vessels and they’re a bit larger.
In order to fix her vocal cords, she underwent surgery before the 2012 Grammys.
Three-year hiatus ended with a “hello”
In April 2012, the British singer announced that her third album was at least two years away. At the 2013 Grammys, she confirmed that her album was in the early stages.
In 2015, Adele officially returned by releasing her third album, “25.” The leading song, “Hello,” became a hit in many countries. “25” earned her five more Grammys with another sweep of the Album, Song, and Record of the Year categories.
The music video for “Hello” hit YouTube on October 22, 2015, and it amassed 27.7 million views in its first 24 hours. It broke Vevo’s record for most views in a day, surpassing Taylor Swift’s record of 20.1 million views for “Bad Blood.”
What’s she up to now?
She was reportedly working on her fourth studio album by 2018 and it was supposed to be released in September 2020. Unfortunately, the album’s production was stalled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Adele also made her first television appearance since October 2015 on Saturday Night Live on October 24, 2020.
At the start of October 2021, there were billboards and projections of the number 30 on various monuments and many suspected that it was the title of Adele’s fourth album. People weren’t far off as the same aesthetic of those billboards was posted on Adele’s website and social media accounts.