Adele

A product of the BRIT performing arts school in Croydon, Adele (born on May 5, 1988 in London, England) first started writing and performing at 16, initially building a following by putting her music on her MySpace page on the internet. As a result, she was signed by the XL label and hit it big with her second single "Chasing Pavements" – co-written with Eg White – in 2008. A thoughtful song, described by Adele as "heartbreak soul," it was classily orchestrated and went on to win numerous awards, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown even contacting Adele to say he was a fan. Her subsequent album 19 (2008) established her internationally, selling over 2.2 million and she was viewed alongside Duffy and Kate Nash as part of new British invasion of female talent. Another track, "Hometown Glory," was featured in TV shows One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy, helping to break her career in the US, where she even collaborated with Jack White and The Raconteurs. The vintage-tinted sound of her second album, 21, landed with a huge splash in 2011 and Adele had a golden beginning to 2012, winning five Grammy and two BRIT Awards within the space of a week. Spawning the earth-quaking international hit that was "Hello," Adele's third album, 25 (2015), also won the 2016 Brit Award for British Album of the Year and the 2017 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2021, the British icon made a welcome return to music with her fourth studio album, 30, which –unsurprisingly – rose to the top of the charts in 22 territories, including the UK and the US, where it became Adele's third chart-topping album on the Billboard 200. Also in 2021, Adele was named the UK's best-selling female album artist of the 21st century, based on Official Charts Company data.