Half an hour before her second album goes on sale in the UK, Adele is in a mellow state of mind. “Everything’s less frantic than it was the first time around,” she says from her London home, winding down after a night out with friends.
The singer is referring to the promotion of her hit 2008 debut 19, which, with worldwide sales of nearly 2.4 million copies, turned this recent graduate of London’s Brit School into one of England’s brightest young pop stars.
“I was nervous and uptight because it was all brand new. The reception was so unexpected that everyone just sort of went along with it.” She lets loose one of her frequent gut-deep chuckles. “Not that I’m saying I’m a professional now. But I’ve learned to sit down and enjoy it all. I feel more free than I ever have.”
That sense of freedom is audible throughout 21, Adele’s bold sophomore set. Created collaboratively by a transatlantic dream team of A-list writers and producers including Rick Rubin, Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder and Francis “Eg” White, it expands upon the delicate folk-soul sound of such 19 cuts as Chasing Pavements and Hometown Glory with headstrong forays into fiery disco-gospel, stomping blues and ’70s-style R&B.
The album’s lead single, Rolling in the Deep, debuted in the UK at No 2 (ahead of Britney Spears’s Hold It Against Me and behind Bruno Mars’s Grenade) on the Official Charts Co’s singles tally; the groove-heavy kiss-off also soundtracks a fresh Nike spot featuring tennis star Maria Sharapova.
“As much as I love 19 – and I do – this is a giant leap forward for her,” says Tedder, the OneRepublic frontman who’s written and produced hits for Beyoncé (Halo) and Leona Lewis (Bleeding Love), among others. “With a couple of exceptions, 19 was very subdued,” Tedder continues. “21 isn’t.”
“She’s got a little more swagger now,” adds Rick Krim, executive VP of music and talent relations at VH1. The network selected Adele as a You Oughta Know artist in 2008, and premiered VH1 Unplugged: Adele this month. “A lot has happened to her since her first record, so you expect to hear some growth. The first single, it’s just instantaneous – it doesn’t sound like anything on her debut.”
Born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, the singer comes by that swagger honestly. In 2006, England’s super-hip XL Recordings signed Adele on the strength of a three-song demo a friend posted on MySpace; within two years she’d won the Brit Awards’s Critics’ Choice prize and been tipped by the BBC as the “Sound of 2008”. In 2009 she beat the Jonas Brothers (as well as fellow UK import Duffy) to the best new artist Grammy and capped her world tour in support of 19 with a sold-out show at Los Angeles’s 17 000-capacity Hollywood Bowl.
Adele says much of the inspiration for 21 came from the country and roots music she heard while on the road in America; she singles out Lady Antebellum and rockabilly pioneer Wanda Jackson.
“She’d been exposed to things that opened her eyes musically,” says Epworth, who co-wrote and produced Rolling in the Deep. “So much of the music from the US over the last century was formed from various trials and tribulations, and that’s reflected on Adele’s record – that she identified with these artists singing about their lives.”
Virtually all of the album’s lyrics refer to a single break-up Adele experienced between 19 and 21, often in disarming detail, as in the disc’s hushed closer, Someone Like You: “I heard that you’re settled down/That you found a girl and you’re married now,” she sings, “I heard that your dreams came true/Guess she gave you things I wouldn’t give to you.”
“We didn’t try to make it open-ended so it could apply to ‘anybody’,” says that song’s co-writer-producer, former Semisonic frontman Dan Wilson. “We tried to make it as personal as possible.”
He and Adele wrote together after being hooked up by Rubin.
“She may not have had a melodic hook or a specific lyrical idea,” he says, “but she always knew what she wanted to say.”
According to Adele’s manager, Jonathan Dickins, that emotional certitude is what has fuelled the singer’s success. “The key to great singers is believing every, single word they sing,” he says. “And I think you believe every word that comes out of Adele’s mouth. People feel like they can relate to her.”
XL chief Richard Russell adds. “Down to earth is such an overused phrase, but it’s never more applicable than it is to Adele.”
Adele will spend much of this year on the road. European dates now, while Kirk Sommer, Adele’s agent at William Morris Endeavor, says the singer will hit the US in May and June, playing 1 500- to 3 000-capacity rooms.
The singer said she’s looking forward to touring, even if it means reliving on a nightly basis the painful experiences her songs depict.
“That’s really… hard,” she says. “Toward the end of touring on 19 there were a couple of shows where I’d be singing Make You Feel My Love and I’d just have to start thinking of Ikea or something.” She laughs. “You have to switch off sometimes.
“Anything I find difficult, though, is thrown in the bin when I see how people respond to my music. I love it when a wife drags her husband to a show and he’s standing there like a lemon. You spend the whole night trying to win him over, and by the end he’s kissing his wife. That’s amazing.” – Billboard