Adele Read online

  In her reference to how long the build-up to the presentation had gone on for, Adele had hinted how tired she had grown of talking about the award. But, having finally got her hands on it, she was mistaken if she thought she was about to get any immediate respite from such discussion. Her first post-presentation chat was with television presenter Fearne Cotton. Trying to up the energy and excitement levels backstage, Cotton said to Adele, ‘This is the first year for this award, and here it is!’

  Adele looked at the award and said, ‘Cool, thanks,’ before giggling. The awkward atmosphere continued when Cotton asked Adele if it had yet sunk in that she had won it. ‘Nearly,’ said Adele, reminding Cotton that she had found out three months ago that she had won it. It was an awkward but amusing moment, typical of these sorts of interviews. The media is bursting with enthusiasm to discuss topics at length that are not half as significant as the attention suggests. Adele continued to have mixed feelings about the award. She later admitted, during an interview with the website Clash Music, that it had come at a price. ‘It was a bit overwhelming, I felt quite uncomfortable by it all,’ she said. ‘Everyone assuming… you know what I mean? It wasn’t actually like, “Oh, she’s won a Brit award ’cos she’s done well.” It was everyone assuming I was gonna do well.’

  As her public profile continued to rise, Adele was mindful of the dangers ahead. She was a shrewd and switched-on lady as her reflections on the potential pitfalls of fame showed. ‘It’s a death trap, this industry,’ she told the Daily Telegraph. ‘I mean, you play to two thousand people who adore you, then you go back to your hotel room alone. That’s quite a comedown.’ How to deal with the high after the show has long been a puzzle which has caused pain for entertainers of all hues. ‘People don’t tend to make it through intact, do they?’ However, she has cause to be confident that she will survive the rigours of fame. Although she has often been compared to tragic Amy Winehouse, she says she had a major advantage over her fellow former BRIT pupil. Despite freely confessing to ‘a serious cigarette and red wine habit’, Adele insists she has never taken anything stronger. ‘I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life,’ she said. ‘I want to be known for my music. I don’t want to be in the press for having coke up my nose, because my nan will see it.’

  That said, she has empathy for Winehouse and the way her life and career had been challenged by her hedonistic ways. Her tribute to Winehouse following her death in July 2011 was, as we shall see, particularly eloquent and touching. As Adele herself has said, she was not a drug user but she enjoyed a drink. Consequently, she was mindful that, while her following in Winehouse’s staggering footsteps seemed unlikely, she could not rule out such a fate. ‘I do worry about it,’ she has said. ‘I’m sure if you’d asked Amy Winehouse three years ago whether she was worried about ending up like that she’d have said, “No”. But it’s easy to fall into. I don’t do drugs, I’ve never done a drug in my life, but I’m a big drinker. And when I do a show and I’ve got six hours to kill, I just get drunk because I’m bored. So I can see how it could happen.’

  Indeed, she felt that not just boredom but something in her very make-up would make drug use a particularly dangerous road for her to go down. ‘Coke is everywhere,’ she said when asked what she most dislikes about the music industry. ‘It would be so easy to fall into it. I am an addictive personality: if I start something I don’t stop. I smoke 30 cigarettes a day, I drank a lot in the past. I know I would go on to other things and I don’t want that.’ Instead, her wildest social plans involved the desire to go to a novelty party at a nightclub. ‘I wanna go to a foam party in a wetsuit – no one will notice me,’ she laughed. ‘Apparently people get naughty.’

  It is understandable that Adele felt that the Brits critics’ choice was a mixed blessing for her. ‘I was the critics’ choice all the time – not the public’s,’ she said, ‘and people naturally back the underdog, not the person who’s shoved in their face the whole time. So, I guess, to me, the success is sweeter because of that… I don’t feel pressurised but all the journalists who tipped me are going to look like right fucking idiots if I just disappear, aren’t they?’ She was busy adjusting to the sudden new demands of fame. ‘I don’t like photo sessions that much. That side of things is a lot harder than I thought it would be, in a good way, though. I mean, I never really thought about being a pop star and I never thought about all the behind-the-scenes stuff that would come with it. I just thought I’d release a single and that would be that.’

  Having been launched through a record label discovering her on the internet, Adele intended to keep that arm of her marketing strategy going. Just as the likes of Lily Allen and Justin Bieber had maintained and built the online networks that launched them, so Adele kept on communicating with fans in that same way. ‘It’s a great way of getting stuff out there,’ she says. ‘I’d much rather five million people heard my music than I earned £5 million. I write bulletins and blogs and I listen to what people say, maybe too much sometimes. If someone emails and they’re like, “You’ve been out of the UK too long, it’s not fair,” I’ll be like, “Right, I’m coming straight back.” It’s also easier to tackle gossip on your blog as it gets so out of control – “Actually I’m not going out with Johnny Borrell” or “I’m not a lesbian”, you know.’

  It was not just Adele who felt the pressure of gossip but those around her, too. ‘I started seeing this boy a couple of months ago,’ she said, in the spring of 2008. ‘It was really amazing and I started trying to write songs again and then he turned around and told me he couldn’t go on with it – he couldn’t handle the paparazzi, plus he was paranoid that I was going to write about him.’

  As she watched the media attention intensify, Adele too became concerned that it would just as easily knock her down. Indeed, she was also anxious that the general public might turn against her. Though she was delighted when the BBC voted her the most promising new artist for 2008, this development also added to her concern that the public might turn against her. Her continued fears were not groundless. People in some places did begin to question just who she thought she was. Others declared that she was not half the talent that Amy Winehouse was. Both of these whispers were unfair. Adele had never done anything to suggest she harboured the sort of arrogance that would merit anyone asking, ‘Who do you think you are?’ Also, she had never compared herself with anyone else or encouraged others to do so. In time, Adele would eclipse even Amy Winehouse and emerge from her shadow. For some time still, though, she would continue to be referenced only in connection to the troubled ‘Rehab’ songstress.

  Things had been more intense for her than many might have suspected. A year later, looking back on this turbulent period of her career, Adele told the Daily Mail that she even considered suicide after she had won her Brit award. That is how desperate she felt. She turned to a more experienced pop star for advice. Given his own sometimes emotionally unstable ways, Robbie Williams’ advice on this occasion proved to be of enormous help and support to Adele. ‘I met Robbie Williams shortly after the awards show and told him how uncomfortable I felt about the prize,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I was getting criticised for the first time, with people saying I only won because I’d been to the BRIT School. They thought I’d been manufactured.’ This, she felt, was unfair, as she had ‘paid my dues with some tough gigs’. She continued to unload her feelings on to Williams. ‘Robbie, who has had his fair share of criticism, was brilliant,’ she said. ‘He told me the prize was just a leg-up: it had put me in a position where people would listen. That helped.’ Her newfound perspective on the issue came when she told one interviewer that she planned to keep the award in her toilet.

  To help her shake off the blues, she could focus on the release of her second single, ‘Chasing Pavements’. It is an intriguing title for a song, no? A strange one, even, as Adele admitted. ‘It doesn’t really make sense, does it? ‘Chasing Pavements’ is about chasing a boy – even if you know something’s gonna go wron
g, you really want it to go right, so you just don’t give up. I can’t write other people’s drama, and I can’t glamorise a microwave or anything like that so I end up writing songs about things I’ve experienced.’ She had co-written the song with songwriter and producer Eg White. The actual story behind its inspiration was the stuff of typical Adele drama. She had a fight with her boyfriend in a nightclub and found herself running down the street in the early hours of the morning. ‘There was no one chasing me and I wasn’t chasing anyone,’ she said. ‘I was just running away. I remember saying to myself, What you’re chasing is an empty pavement. It’s a metaphor. It’s impossible to chase a pavement but I was chasing that pavement.’ As an attention-grabbing title, it had a lot going for it, even if some listeners thought she was singing ‘Chasing payment’.

  There was a striking meteorological and geographical contrast for Adele between the circumstances of the song’s recording and those of its release. It had been recorded in the summer in the Bahamas in 2007 and was released in Britain in the middle of winter, in early 2008. The B-side she chose for the song was an acoustic cover of the Sam Cooke song ‘That’s It, I Quit, I’m Movin’ On’. She had first introduced the main track to the nation at the end of 2007 on the BBC’s popular chat show Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. With viewing figures of up to five million, Ross’s show was a superb place for any artist to appear. Acts that were far more established and known than Adele was in 2007 could only watch with jealousy as she showed up there. The sleeve for the release featured Adele on a sofa, with her right arm draped over the side.

  Meanwhile, the promotional video was broadcast regularly on the airwaves. It centres around a car crash in which a man and woman have been hurt. As the drama plays out, Adele approaches the scene on foot, singing the lyrics. She then stands overlooking the scene as the medical team treats the victims, singing with palpable detachment. There are split narratives, one of which sees the victims taken away. The other features them coming to life and dancing. It was directed by Matthew Cullen, whose company described the video as ‘surreal’. ‘When I listened to the song, I was inspired by the idea of following after someone you love even though it will never work out,’ said Cullen. ‘The unconscious couple coming to life to retell the story of their relationship was a perfect storytelling device for the themes.’ He explained that capturing on film the shadows that the dancing couple cast against the pavement presented the biggest challenge because there was only a 30-minute window of suitable daylight each day. ‘Light is your best friend and your enemy but in the end it worked,’ he said.

  It did indeed: his video won an MTV award for Best Choreography. In due course, as we shall see, the song itself would net Adele some prestigious prizes.

  Meanwhile, as she promoted the song, she was again interviewed widely, bringing her to the attention of ever more people. During her chat with the Digital Spy website, she was asked by the interviewer to define her sound. As she began to receive worldwide attention, plenty of critics, fans and other people would offer their own definitions. For now, Adele said of her music. ‘I’d call it heartbroken soul – pathetic love songs about being pathetic! I was listening back to my album the other day, and I just thought, Oh, my God, I’m so pathetic when it comes to boys!’

  She got more used to the demands of the media and always understood the importance of media promotions, particularly so earlier in her career. She found television appearances ‘boring’ backstage. She complained that, because ‘everyone’s an arsehole’ there, she found the experience ruined her own enjoyment of television as a viewer.

  A bizarre turn of events occurred when a misunderstanding in America led to the song being banned. A school of thought developed in the US that ‘pavements’ in the song meant gay men. The theory sprang up after an entry was added to the popular website Urban Dictionary, which lists definitions of youth slang terms. It is an open website, meaning entries can be added easily by readers. ‘Because of that some radio stations in the States wouldn’t play it,’ said Adele. ‘The guy wrote it on Urban Dictionary, which I’ve used for years and “chasing pavements” was never on there before.’

  However, that was a mere blip for her progress in the long run. Just like ‘Hometown Glory’, ‘Chasing Pavements’ proved a popular song for television dramas to use as a soundtrack. It featured on several episodes of Hollyoaks, and on American show 90210. It was also included in the film Wild Child. All of the various promotional routes paid off. ‘Chasing Pavements’ reached UK No 2 and remained in the top 40 for many weeks. In fact, by the time ‘Chasing Pavements’ slipped out of the top 40, Adele was already promoting a new, weightier release. Just a fortnight after her second single had been released, she unleashed her first album. She was nervous ahead of its release, and wondered how well it would fare. There is obviously much more emotional investment in a full body of work, particularly in the debut album. It is this release that gives the most solid sign yet of where an artist’s fortunes might be.

  Adele need not have worried: it went straight to UK No 1.

  chapter four

  19

  few talented pop artists ever went poor by writing catchy songs about heartbreak – it is one of the most fertile genres in showbusiness. But Adele insists she had never made a deliberate decision to write so many sad love songs, the like of which formed the majority of her debut album. ‘In the past I’ve tried to sit down and think, Right, this is what I’m going to write about – but I can’t because you can’t force it. All my songs are a bit sad and full of drama because when I’m happy I haven’t got time to write songs, y’know? When I’ve had my heart broken, I end up feeling sorry for myself and writing songs.’ Such music dominated her debut album, 19. Though there were occasional diversions from the theme of heartbreak, it was that which unified the majority of the tracks. The collection was one of the most eloquent and moving – as well as musically impressive – expressions of romantic pain that the album charts had known for some time.

  So much has been written and said about 19. Yet the coverage, though overwhelmingly positive, has largely ignored the eclectic use of styles and genres. Adele insisted that there was no contrived plot for the album, that it was just produced quite naturally. ‘I had no specific plans for my album,’ she told Blues And Soul website. ‘In fact, I still don’t know exactly what kind of artist I want to be! You know, for me the album was just about making a record of songs to get a boy off my chest and include all the different kinds of music that I love.’ While she knew that she would be painted as a ‘white soul girl’, she had not aimed for that or any other kind of label for her debut. ‘You know, the album genuinely did just come together very naturally and very organically,’ she said. The independent streak that Adele and her mother had developed after their family became a single-parent one had an influence on the songwriting process. Attempts to pair her with co-writers were largely met with a thundering rejection from Adele. ‘People kept trying to put me with writers,’ she said, demonstrating her annoyance. ‘I was like, “I’m better than that!” so I thought, I’m writing on my own.’

  Asked why she chose to name the album 19, she initially quipped that she simply had been unable to think of any other title. This, despite the fact that she considers album titles important, particularly titles for debut albums. Her two favourite such titles are Debut, for Björk’s first album, and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. ‘They’re ones that everyone just knows, that don’t make you think too much and are just quite obvious,’ she said. In the end, she went for 19 because she felt that the album ‘very much’ represented her age. She felt that she ‘became a bit of a woman’ when she was 19, so she named the album in homage to that important time in her life. When she was signed to XL Recordings, she was 18 with just three songs under her belt. Soon after she turned 19, though, ‘a load more just suddenly came out of me’. She has never responded to the suggestion that her choice of name was a sly dig at the management company of Simon Fuller, 19,
which launched the Spice Girls and the Pop Idol genre. Given her love of that band and the genre of talent show, it seems unlikely – all the more so given that she followed the age-related theme when it came to titling her follow-up album.

  Adele’s emotions are raw throughout the album. ‘I was very sad when I wrote it,’ she said. ‘And I think that genuinely does come through in the music.’ The opening track is ‘Daydreamer’, an acoustic folk song of much prettiness. It is a gentle start. Adele’s soft vocal delivery is accompanied only by a gentle, acoustic guitar. The song is so sweet it prompts a daydream in the mind of the listener as they listen to Adele’s touching lyrics about an ideal man. Not that this is an entirely tender, romantic song. The line about the man who feels up his girl ensures that it retains a more rugged element, in keeping with Adele’s image and personality. It was influenced by the time she fell for a man without realising he was bisexual. ‘I had no problem with that,’ she said, ‘but I get so jealous anyway and I can’t fight off girls and boys. When I told him that, he said not to worry. Two hours later, he was kissing my gay best friend next door.’

  The wistful theme continues in the first verse of track two, ‘Best for Last’. She starts by hoping that her man will be a perfect lover, with a way with words. These wishes are interrupted in the second verse, as she reveals that the man has played her and that she now no longer thinks he’ll be around for long. She moves between the yearning for ideal romance and angry realisation that she will not find it with this man throughout this raw, jazz- and gospel-tinged song with its minimalist backtrack. It works well, many women – and indeed some men – will relate to the dual narratives of romance. The raised hopes which are dashed, only to somehow resurrect themselves afresh.