Throwback Thursday: Adele – “Chasing Pavements”
We went without a TBT post two Thursdays ago, so I’m making you whole today.
As we’ve discussed many times in the past, commercial success in the music industry is not an exact science. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the kind of career an artist is going to have.
Every now and then, however, an artist comes along and you just kinda know: This one’s a star.
Adele is one of them ones.
To be fair, a white artist with a Black sound is a proven cheat code, but her debut single, “Chasing Pavements,” is worthy of the accolades. Written by the singer and Eg White, the ballad is based on an incident where Adele was walking down a pavement alone after being kicked out of a bar for punching her then-boyfriend in the face — she had gone to the bar to confront him after finding out he was cheating. The drama.
In 2023, it’s not unreasonable to be skeptical about some of the “true stories” that “inspire” Adele’s music, but back then, it all seemed legit. “Chasing Pavements” would go on to win a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Adele would also win the award for Best New Artist.
In the 15 years since the song’s release, Adele has established herself as one of the greatest artists of all time, with her albums, 21 and 25, holding the distinction as the last two albums to be certified diamond in the US — the latter also holds the record for the most sales in a debut week, with 3.38 million copies sold. She has also won 16 Grammys, including two wins each in the Album, Record and Song of the Year categories.
It turns out that those pavements were indeed leading Adele to world domination. Click play.
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