Sunday Spotlight: Adele

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins or simply known to millions of adoring fans as Adele. Giving us album her fourth album, 30 on Friday. This follows three huge records. Back in 2015 I featured Adele in this very Sunday segement.

With sales of over 120 million records (and growing by the minute!), her debut album, 19, was released in 2008, spawning the UK top-five singles Chasing Pavements & Make You Feel My Love. 

19 was certified 8× platinum in the UK and triple platinum in the US. 

Adele released her second studio album, 21, in 2011. It became the world's best-selling album of the 21st century, with sales of over 31 million copies. It was certified 17× platinum in the UK & Diamond in the US. 

Adele was the first female artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to have three simultaneous top-ten singles as a lead artist, with Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You & Set Fire to the Rain, all of which also topped the chart. 

The album received a record-tying six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year and the Brit Award for British Album of the Year. 

In 2012, Adele released Skyfall, a soundtrack single for the James Bond film of the same name, which won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. 

Adele's third studio album, 25, was released in 2015 and became the year's best-selling album and broke first-week sales records in the UK and US. 25 was her second album to be certified Diamond in the US and earned her five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and four Brit Awards, including British Album of the Year. 

Hello became the first song in the US to sell over one million digital copies within a week of its release. 

Adele's accolades include fifteen Grammy Awards and nine Brit Awards. In 2011, 2012, and 2016, Billboard named her Artist of the Year. 

Her third tour saw her break attendance records globally, including in the UK, Australia, and the US, and her album 21 has been listed in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020).

Adele is the second last Sunday Spotlight (for now) as we prepare to welcome the Summer Music Lists again really soon. You wouldn't think it on a wet spring Sunday afternoon summer was just around the corner.

See you next week for a farewell (of sorts) to the Sunday Spotlight.