Adele: Songwriting, Developing As An Artist, The Pressure To Outdo Yourself, And Success

This show features 4 soundbites of insight from the one and only Adele. Adele is British singer and songwriter, and, at the young age of 29, already a national treasure and international superstar. The sky started falling in 2006, when her friend posted her demo on Myspace (for those who don’t know, imagine an early version of facebook), and she was swiftly snapped up by the XL Recordings record label. It is easy to say this was the moment a star was born, but with a voice like she had then, combined with such a amazing talent for songwriting, it appears she was already a star—just an unidentified one. Within a year of being signed up she was known around the world; and in 2008, she was touring around the world with her debut album, 19. Her concert tour, An Evening With Adele, was 78 shows and 18+ months long, and it etched her name in American cultural history, which was where the tour heavily focused on (a tactical move, yes, but a good one, it must be said).
Since then she has etched her own, very impressive, and record-breaking history. She has 15 Grammy awards to her name; her first album was certified 7 times platinum, and her second and third albums, certified diamond; she has sold an estimated 58 million albums worldwide; and in 2012 and 2016 she was named by Billboard as their Artist Of The Year and by Time as one of the world’s most influential people.
You’ll know her for songs like ‘Skyfall’, which she wrote for the James Bond movie of the same name, ‘Rolling In The Deep’, ‘Chasing Pavements’, and the beautiful, ‘Hometown Glory’.
Wherever you find this podcast, in the description you will find a link to the very video of Adele’s demo from all this years ago, in which she sings her own song, ‘Daydreamer’. Without much more, now let’s here Adele talk about songwriting, creativity, and the negatives of success.
Adele’s 2006 demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW8QTSFx4zI
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What is the Success Series Podcast? The success series podcast is all about the secrets, recipes and philosophies of some of the world’s most famous and successful people—be them composers, actors, actresses, entrepreneurs, authors, painters, investors, philosophers, journalists, scientists—you name it. Each episode features one person, and typically, 7-10 separate pieces of advice.
However, these podcasts are not interviews done by us; what we do instead is comb the internet platforms for any recordings and audio clips that already exist, study them, and then separate the wheat from the chaff. These podcasts, are the wheat—or better put, the audio equivalent of your favourite superfood. Not a fan of superfoods? Then consider them audio equivalent of the food item you can’t live without.
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