IO – Adele stole the show when ap- pearing on Saturday Night Live. Adele delighted audiences when she sang snippets of her hit songs in a skit mocking The Bachelor franchise. While her performances were short and sweet, it marked the first time she has sung on American TV since performing at the 2017 Grammys. She crooned to “Someone Like You,” “When We Were Young,” “Hello” and “Rolling in the Deep.”
“I know there’s been a lot of chat- ter about me just being the host,” she explained as quoted by Eonline. “Like why isn’t she the musical guest and stuff like that, and there’s a couple of reasons: My album’s not finished, and I’m also too scared to do both.”
She added, “I’d rather just put on some wigs… have a glass of wine or six and just see what happens.” Adele even reminded viewers that SNL “pre- miered my career here in America, 12 very long years ago” when they booked her as a musical guest in 2008.
After losing weight in the last year, many have commented on Adele’s transformation. For the first time, the singer discussed her weight loss on her own terms. “I know I look really, really different since you last saw me but actually, because of all the COVID restrictions and the travel bans, I had to travel light and only bring half of me”
She joked, “And this is the half I chose.”
However, the star did break into song during one of the night’s sketches. A spoof of the reality show The Bachelor, it saw Adele enter the competition as a female contestant looking. for a date.
“I’m here because I’ve had a lot of heartbreak in my life – first at 19 and then, sort of famously, at 21 and then, even more famously, at 25,” she said as quoted by BBC, referencing the ti- tles of her first three albums.” “After graduating from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a re- cording contract with XL Recordings. In 2007, she received the Brit Awards Critics’ Choice Award and won the BBC Sound of 2008 poll. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008. It is certified 8x platinum in the UK and triple platinum in the US. The album contains her first song, “Hometown Glory”, written when she was 16, which is based on her home suburb of West Norwood in London. An ap- pearance she made on Saturday Night Live in late 2008 boosted her career in the US. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, Adele won the awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Adele released her second studio album, 21, in 2011. The album was critically well-received and surpassed the success of her debut, earning nu- merous awards in 2012, among them a record-tying six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year; the Brit Award for British Album of the Year; and the American Music Award for Favorite Pop/Rock Album. The album has been certified 17× platinum in the UK, and is overall the fourth best-sell- ing album in the nation. In the US, it has held the top position longer than any album since 1985, and is certified Diamond. The world’s best-selling al- bum of 2011 and 2012, 21 has sold over 31 million copies, making it the best-selling album of the 21st cen- tury. The success of 21 earned Adele numerous mentions in the Guinness Book of Records. She was the first female in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to have three simultaneous top-ten singles as a lead artist, with “Rolling in the Deep”, “Someone Like You”, and “Set Fire to the Rain”, all of which also topped the chart.
In 2012, Adele released “Skyfall”, which she co-wrote and recorded for the James Bond film of the same” “name. The song won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and the Brit Award for British Single of the Year. After taking a three-year break, Adele released her third studio album, 25, in 2015. It became the year’s best-selling album and broke first-week sales re- cords in the UK and US. 25 was her second album to be certified Diamond in the US and earned her five Gram- my Awards, including Album of the Year, and four Brit Awards, including British Album of the Year. The lead single, “Hello”, became the first song in the US to sell over one million digi- tal copies within a week of its release. Her third concert tour, Adele Live 2016, visited Europe, North America and Oceania, and concluded with fi- nale concerts at Wembley Stadium in June 2017.
With sales of over 120 million records, Adele is one of the world’s best-selling music artists. Her acco- lades include fifteen Grammy Awards and nine Brit Awards. In 2011, 2012, and 2016, Billboard named her Art- ist of the Year. At the 2012 and 2016 Ivor Novello Awards, Adele was named Songwriter of the Year by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In 2012, she was listed at number five on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women in Music. (rp)