Adele was signed by XL Recordings after a friend posted her demo on MySpace. XL produced her early records but brought in Columbia Records to help with distribution in the US. While XL helped make Adele a star in the UK, her collaboration with Columbia helped her breakthrough in America. Adele's second album 21 was highly anticipated and she promoted it through a US tour and appearances on shows like Saturday Night Live, helping it become a major commercial success internationally.

1. Adele

2. Production

3. How Adele got started
Adele was signed by XL Recordings on the basis of a demo CD
which one of her friends posted onto MySpace. The record label
heard the song and arranged to meet her so they could
persuade her to sign a deal.

4. Producing Records
XL Recordings recorded her songs and put all the finishing
touches to it. They did this solely by themselves to start with,
but then as Adele started to get known globally, Columbia
Records stepped in to help with distribution in the US. Adele
never took off in America until she had a Saturday Night Live
appearance and since then she has gone from strength to
strength.

5. XL & Columbia
XL Recordings is an independent British record label. It is owned
by Richard Bussell and it originated as a 1989 offshoot of
Beggars Banquet Records. XL Recordings signed Adele first and
helped her on her way to being a star in the UK, but once
Columbia Records sign her as part of a synergy, she took off in
America too. Columbia, who are a big part of Sony Music
Entertainment, don’t own XL, but they work with them to help
each other get the best results.

6. Marketing
& Distribution

7. 21 Album
Adele released her highly anticipated album “21” on January 24th 2011
in the UK and 22nd February 2011 in the U.S.
To help sales in the U.S Adele announced that she would do a U.S tour
called “Adele Live” which sold out and saw a huge rise in sales of the
album.
The album's sound is described as classic and contemporary
Country. This was a change from her first album because a bus driver
was playing country music when she was touring the southern states
in America.

8. Interviews – Vogue!!!
Adele has been the cover of vogue twice so far during her short
career. She featured on the UK version in October 2011,
however it was revealed by Vogue it was one of the worst selling
issues to date. And UK vogue editor Alexandra Shulman revealed
that “music artists don’t sell well”
However Adele was Vogue’s covergirl less than a year later and
featured on the cover in March 2012.

9. British vs. America
Adele first came into the
spotlight as the BBC's Sound
of 2008 winner. She was just
19, and the youngest act to
be ever given this title.
Her debut album, called 19,
has sold 1.1 million copies to
date.
Adele performed “to make
you feel my love” on the X
Factor and this helped her
become a household name
and gain her successful
British status.
BRITISH AMERICA
In 2010 Adele
performed at the 2010
CMT awards and
performed a duet with
the highly respected
country artist Darius
Rucker, they performed
a cover of Lady
Antebellum’s number
one hit “Need You
Now.”

10. Awards
Adele has won a total of 95 awards in her career so far. This includes an
Academy Award for her hit single Skyfall for the James Bond film, Skyfall.
Adele also won a golden globe, once again for Skyfall.
Adele has also won many other awards such as various BRIT awards, in which
she infamously got her speech cut by James Cordon. Adele also has 10
Grammy awards under her belt.

11. How is Adele targeted at a
National audience (The UK)
By being signed by a British label as well as an American one,
Adele has been heavily marketed in the UK. She has her name in
the Guinness World Record Books as well for the first artist to
sell over 3 million copies of an album in a year in the UK and has
it certified four times platinum too. She also sang the latest
James Bond Film’s theme song “Skyfall”, which won an Academy
Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. These
achievements show how she has really caught the eye of the
public in Britain.

12. Continued…
She has also featured on many Saturday night prime time TV
shows such as; The Jonathon Ross Show, The X Factor, Britain’s
Got Talent and many more. These TV shows have also propelled
her to fame as millions of people watch them and would have
seen her.

13. Synergy & Convergence
Skyfall

14. Who was involved?
The song was written by Adele herself and Paul Epworth, who
works for the Sony owned Columbia Records. The song was the
theme tune to the latest and most successful James Bond film
and was recorded in 2012 at the Abbey Road Studios in London.
It features orchestration by J.A.C Redford. The film company Eon
Productions invited Adele to work on the theme in early 2011,
which she accepted straight after reading the script.

15. Success
The song was an instant hit and went to number one in the UK
iTunes online store in less than ten hours after it was released.
The single sold 84,000 copies in the UK during the first two days
of release and on October 14th it had sold 92,000 copies and tied
with Duran Duran’s ‘A View to Kill’ as the highest charting Bond
theme song. It was the 20th best selling song in UK in 2012
selling 547,000 copies.
In the US it sold 261,000 in the first three days of release and
debuted at number 8 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Skyfall led
to 10% increase in sales of Adele’s last album, 21, in the US.
Also the music video on AdeleVEVO on Youtube has had
90,000,000 views. VEVO is a company part owned by Sony.

16. Marketing
Sony Music Entertainment used Adele to sing the Skyfall theme
tune to increase the popularity of both the film and song, which
in turn marketed Adele to the public too. They also created
merchandise to go with the film so that it would create more
publicity for the company. Sony did this by using different
products to advertise both Adele and the film which is an
example of a synergy.
Sony also formed a convergence between gaming, music and
film industries by releasing a Skyfall game along with the
soundtrack and film. The film promoted the game which
promoted the soundtrack which promoted the film and so on.