Critics' Choice: The Story of Adele
To celebrate the release of BRITs Critics' Choice: The Album on January 6, we're looking back at all the past winners of the Critics' Choice Award and how their careers have progressed - starting with the first recipient in 2008, Adele.
Jack Peñate ft Adele - My Yvonne
The first time the world heard Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was when she featured on Jack Peñate’s My Yvonne in 2007.
Jack Peñate ft Adele - My Yvonne
The first time the world heard Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was when she featured on Jack Peñate’s My Yvonne in 2007.
The inaugural Critics' Choice Award winner
Having already signed to XL and beginning to cause a stir, she was the first recipient of the Critics’ Choice Award. She was picked by music industry experts as someone who would ‘breakthrough in 2008’ – they couldn’t have been more right…
Debut album
Her debut album 19, went straight to No. 1 and seven times platinum in the UK thanks to incredible tracks like Chasing Pavements.
Record breaker
But that was nothing compared to the success of her next album, 21. Released on January 24, 2011, it’s sold in excess of 26 million copies worldwide and led to Adele breaking a Guinness World Record for being the first artist to sell more than 3 million copies of an album in just a year in the UK. It has gone on to become the biggest selling album of the 21st Century.
(This video has had nearly half-a-billion views!)
BRIT Awards 2011
Just a couple of weeks after the release of 21, she gave this breathtaking performance at the BRIT Awards 2011, which propelled Someone Like You to No. 1 in the UK. It also saw 19 re-enter the Top 5, and Adele became the first artist since The Beatles in 1964 to have two of the Top 5 records in both the Singles and Album Charts.
Bond Girl
Bringing the story up to date, at last year’s BRITs she won her fourth BRIT, taking home Best British Single for Skyfall, the title song to the James Bond movie of the same name which celebrated 50 years of the film franchise.
There are lots of rumours about Adele’s third album… And we can’t wait for when it does finally come.
You can pre-order 'Critics' Choice: The Album' now exclusively from iTunes.
