Adele Laurie Blue Adkins may be the biggest name on everybody’s lips right now but there’s more to the star than meets the eye. To celebrate her incredible album, 25, we’ve compiled a list of fun facts about the singer.
1. Adele doesn’t consider herself a ‘singer’. Instead she prefers to term “singing lady”.
2. The star suffers from crippling stage fright that only seems to be getting worse. “I get so nervous with live performances that I’m too frightened to try anything new,” Adele told NPR. “It’s actually getting worse. Or it’s just not getting better, so I feel like it’s getting worse, because it should’ve gotten better by now.”
3. Trying to work with one of her biggest idols led to one of her biggest disappointments. Damon Alban of Blur came out and lambasted the star after a failed session in the recording studio.
“None of it was right. None of it suited my record. He said I was insecure, when I’m the least-insecure person I know. I was asking his opinion about my fears, about coming back with a child involved — because he has a child — and then he calls me insecure?”
4. She doesn’t like to listen to her own music: “I’m not having that. That’s ridiculous. I listen to my music for mixes, and to sign off on things once I’ve done them, but no way would I ever listen to my own music. That is so weird.”
5. Adele began writing for ‘25‘ when she was 23 but had to stop after she experienced writer’s block: “I realised I had nothing to write about. I had no inspiration. I had no idea what kind of songs. No chords were moving me. I wasn’t ready.”
6. Adele stumbled upon one of her biggest inspirations by accident. At 13, she purchased an Etta James CD to show her hairdresser how she wanted her hair done. Later she re-discovered the CD while cleaning her room and listened to it. The rest is history.
7. 25 is the first album to sell more than 3 million copies in one week, and only the second to sell more than 2 million in a week.
8. Adele was banned from her own Twitter account after “drunk tweeting” too many times.
9. She’s been honoured by the British Royal Family. in June 2013 she was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to music.
10. She was discovered on MySpace by XL Recordings in 2006, after a friend posted a three-track demo.