19 – Adele

19 is the debut studio album by British singer Adele. It was first released on 28 January 2008, through XL Recordings. Following Adele’s graduation from the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in May 2006, she began publishing songs and recorded a three-song demo for a class project and gave it to a friend. The friend posted the demo on Myspace, where it became very successful and led to interest from XL Recordings. This led to Adele signing a recording contract with the label and providing vocals for Jack Peñate, during this session for Peñate’s song she met producer Jim Abbiss, who would go on to produce the majority of her debut album.

Songs

Vinyl (June 10, 2008)

Limited Edition edition

Original Release Date: June 10, 2008

Number of Discs: 1

Label: Sony Legacy

Run Time: 44 minutes

Adele graduated from the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon in May 2006, where she was a classmate of Leona Lewis and Jessie J. Adele credits the school with nurturing her talent even though, at the time, she was more interested in going into A&R and hoped to launch other people’s careers. Four months after graduation, she published two songs on the fourth issue of the online arts publication PlatformsMagazine.com. She had recorded a three-song demo for a class project and given it to a friend. The friend posted the demo on Myspace, where it became very successful and led to a phone call from Richard Russell, boss of the music label XL Recordings. She doubted if the offer was real because the only record company she knew was Virgin Records, and she took a friend with her to the meeting.

Nick Huggett, at XL, recommended Adele to manager Jonathan Dickins at September Management, and in June 2006, Dickins became her official representative. September was managing Jamie T at the time and this proved a major draw for Adele, a big fan of the British singer-songwriter. Huggett then signed Adele to XL in September 2006. Adele provided vocals for Jack Peñate’s song, “My Yvonne,” for his debut album, and it was during this session she first met producer Jim Abbiss, who would go on to produce both the majority of her debut album, 19, and tracks on 21. Adele recorded a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” on the recommendation of her manager Jonathan Dickins, who loved the song.