Adele's success continues

After just 60 weeks on release, Adele's sophomore album '21' has become the 7th biggest seller ever in the UK: Overtaking 'Dark Side of the Moon'

And likely to overtake Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' within weeks, too

Thank goodness it's someone worthy!

misery guts wrote:And likely to overtake Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' within weeks, too

And now she has

And so it goes on...

Adele wins 2 Ivor Novello Awards

Adele wins 12 Billboard Awards

Announced yesterday that she & her husband are "with child"

Having been rumoured for a year or more, Adele was confirmed as the singer (and co-writer) of the new James Bond theme, 'Skyfall', following in the illustrious footsteps of Matt Monro and Rita Coolidge. The song was released on iTunes yesterday, and looks like being another huge success

'Skyfall' was tipped to be the first Bond theme to top the UK charts, but it was pipped by Swedish House Mafia instead (though there's always future weeks, I guess).

On a happier note: 'Rolling in the Deep' voted 'Song of the Year'

It's been a few weeks since the last story about Adele selling lots of records, so:

Adele Sets New Record for US album sales

Adele has become the first British female artist to reach the 10 million sales mark in the United States with her album 21.

Featuring hit songs Someone Like You and Rolling In The Deep, 21 was the best-selling album of 2011.

Earlier this year, Adele won six Grammys including best song, record of the year and album of the year.

21 was the third album to hit the 10 million mark in 2012, along with Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory and Usher's Confessions.

But it is the only album to reach the milestone in less than two years in the last decade, according to chart firm Nielsen SoundScan.

'21' has now overtaken Oasis' 1995 classic '(What's The Story) Morning Glory?' in the all-time UK sales lists. ABBA's 'Gold' compilation is the next target.

'Skyfall' won her a Golden Globe

'Skyfall' also won an Oscar, supposedly the first time a Bond film has ever been recognised by the Academy, which seems unlikely.

I forget who I have made threads for... anyway:

"From 2010, every BPI Certified Award disc boasts an individually-numbered and unique BPI hologram to authenticate each Certified Award and enhance the look of the framed presentation disc itself. The highly coveted Awards are THE way of commemorating UK success for the artists and the teams that support them."

Platinum, Gold and Silver awards adorn the homes of some of the biggest names in recorded music. The growth of digital formats saw a la carte singles and album downloads become eligible from 2004 onwards, while the first Music DVD certification was awarded in 2005. In July 2013 'auto-certification' was introduced to allocate certifications to titles as soon as they passed the relevant sales thresholds, although member companies can still certify titles manually based on shipments.

Highest Certifications
01 Adele - 21 - 16x Platinum - Released: 24 January 2011
02 Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory - 14x Platinum - Released: 02 October 1995
03 ABBA - ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits - 13x Platinum - Released: 21 September 1992
04 Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms - 13x Platinum - Released: 01 May 1985
05 Michael Jackson - Bad - 13x Platinum - Released: 31 August 1987
06 Madonna - The Immaculate Collection - 12x Platinum - Released: 12 November 1990
07 Simply Red - Stars - 12x Platinum - Released: 30 September 1991
08 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - 11x Platinum - Released: 24 April 1984
09 Michael Jackson - Thriller - 11x Platinum - Released: 03 December 1982
10 Queen - Greatest Hits - 11x Platinum - Released: 26 October 1981

Not quite sure where Dark Side of the Moon fits in to all this, but it gives you some idea...

Adele: Live at the Royal Albert Hall
They caught her on a good day. She's got a great voice, no question, and I was glad that she finished on 'Rolling In The Deep', too.

Live From The Artist's Den: Adele
One chick and her guitarist, from the Santa Monica Bay Women's Club, from Feb 25, 2011. Her between-song banter displays her personality and charm, and her cover version choices are quirkier than the norm. She ended on 'You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman'.

Supposedly, her 3rd album will be out sometime in 2014.

misery guts wrote:Supposedly, her 3rd album will be out sometime in 2014.

Not now it isn't. Given the monster success of the 2nd one, I'm not that surprised. Presumably coming around February perhaps.

Still no signs of that 3rd album.

Adele: Someone Like Me
Endearing effort helped by her only having 2 albums to her name so far. She was down-to-earth and prone to using real life emotion as the foundation of her songwriting success. Her 'sophomore' album really put her over the top in the UK and the US - I was glad that 'Rolling In The Deep' seemed of equal importance to 'Someone Like You'. Multiple Grammy wins suggest that her 3rd album will be the focus of much hype and interest when it comes.

Well, now it seems there is finally movement on the 3rd album front, with a short teaser advert screened last night, and the album due in November.

Her third album will be called "25", and the first single from it is "Hello".

Hello

Adele on Her Return: 'I Was So Frightened That No One Cared'

Now that Adele's lead 25 single "Hello" is here, the Grammy and Oscar winner is making the rounds (via phone call) on various radio shows.

Speaking to New York Z100's Elvis Duran Friday (Oct. 23) morning, Adele revealed that prior to her comeback, she was very concerned no one would care about her anymore.

"100 percent, I was so frightened that no one cared," Adele told Duran. When the first snippet of 25 debuted in a mysterious X Factor U.K. commercial, she said she assumed "everyone is going to think it's an advert for furniture stores."

Adele's 11 Singles, Ranked

Obviously, that wasn't the public's response. The first taste of new Adele blew up the Internet earlier this week, and "Hello" has already hit No. 1 on iTunes and topped the social conversation-based Billboard Trending 140 chart for 15 consecutive hours.

As for the contemplative, lovelorn tune, Adele explained the darkness in "Hello" to Jenny Eliscu on SiriusXM. "I like to be dramatic. I'm a bit of a drama queen. There's nothing more poignant in my life than anyone else's life, it's just I write about it, so it lasts forever."

Adele also said 25 wasn't her first attempt at a follow-up to 21. She said she went into the studio at one point but "it became obvious pretty quickly I wasn't in the headspace to access my creativity. So I decided not to do it until I felt ready." That meant she didn't start working on 25 "until my kid was 18 months old, maybe two years old."

Adele Shares '25' Tracklist

Adele even gave Eliscu some info on a 25 track we haven't heard yet, "When We Were Young." Co-written with Tobias Jesso Jr. (who has a co-writing credit alongside Adele and Sia on the latter's "Alive"), Adele reveals the song was composed at the piano of the classical contemporary world's most celebrated composer.

"We wrote this song called 'When We Were Young' at the most insane house in L.A., and we wrote it at Philip Glass' piano, which was just insane. I would have been devastated if we left without a song for the record."

But pop-soul fans needn't fret -- the song isn't Adele's foray into hypnotic, repetitive minimalism. "It's a very '70s singer-songwriter vibe," Adele said. "Which is Tobias' thing, which is why I picked him."

'Hello' is expected to shoot straight to #1 in the UK, and probably the US too

It did.

After 3 weeks at #1, the single has gone 'Platinum' for sales of over 300,000 copies. Not that that means anything like what it does for downloads compared to what it did for vinyl and cassettes, but hey.

Her new album "25" looks on course to set a new 1st-week-sales record, having sold half a million already, and thus left only to overhaul Oasis 'Be Here Now' tally.

Adele album on course for record

She did indeed set a new UK record for 1st week album sales, of approx. 800k. Of those, 1/4 mill were digital, the rest being CDs.

She has also announced details of a tour for 2016, which will inevitably be her first since 2011.

Adele at the BBC
Blatant plug for the new album, as Adele chatted to Irish chat show host Graham Norton, performed a few numbers new & old, and did a couple of comedy skits. The gushing overuse of "here's another world exclusive performance" rather worked against the sincerity of the exercise, but at least it gave showings to her next single, "When We Were Young" too.

Whilst '25' continues to break sales records, Adele is being blighted by accusations of plagiarism:

accused of plagiarism by fans of Turkish musician Ahmet Kaya

some critics in Turkey think her track Million Years Ago is a bit too similar to an 80s song by an artist called Ahmet Kaya.