Adele

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, born 5 May 1988 in the London borough of Tottenham, England, better known by her stage name Adele, is a British singer-songwriter. In 2008, she released her first album titled 19, which sold more than 8.5 million copies. She was the first to receive the Critics' Choice Award at the Brit Awards. She was elected by a panel of music critics as the best emerging artist of BBC's Sound of 2008. In 2009, Adele won two awards at the 51st Grammy Awards ceremony, Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

In 2011, she released her second album titled 21. Adele won six Grammy Awards at the 54th ceremony, becoming the second woman to accomplish such a feat. In 2012, she performed the theme song for the film Skyfall, which earned her a Golden Globe and an Oscar in the Best Original Song category. In February 2013, she won the Grammy Award for Best Solo Pop Performance for Set Fire to the Rain. In 2014, the album sold 1.74 million copies in France. 21 holds the record for the most successful album in the history of American charts, having dominated the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks. 21 became the best-selling album of the decade and subsequently sold over 31 million copies worldwide. The album is the best-selling album of the 21st century, both in the United Kingdom and worldwide.

Her third album, 25, was released in 2015. It topped the sales charts in many countries and was the first album to sell over three million copies in a week in the United States. Adele also became the artist with the most record sales in the world in 2015 thanks to this album. In February 2017, she was the big winner of the Grammy Awards, winning five trophies out of five nominations (Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Solo Pop Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album). In 2016, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry named Adele the most popular musical artist in the world for 2015. In 2016, she was the second highest-paid female singer in the world. She is the richest celebrity under thirty in the United Kingdom. 25 sold over 22 million copies worldwide. Her fourth album, 30, released in November 2021, was the best-selling album in the world that year and won the 2022 Brit Award for Best British Album.

With over 120 million albums sold worldwide, Adele is among the artists with the most record sales. She is the female artist with the most sales in the United Kingdom in the 21st century and the artist with the most sales in the United States in the 2010s. In 2011, The Guardian named Adele the most powerful and influential person in the music industry. In 2012, she ranked fifth in VH1's "100 Greatest Women in Music." Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world in 2012, 2016 and 2022. At the 2012 and 2016 Ivor Novello Awards, Adele was named Songwriter of the Year by the British Academy of Songwriters. In 2013, she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to music at the Queen's Birthday Honours.