Adele said that she and Drake are “a dying breed” within the music industry. That’s probably true. Adele built her music capital assets in 2008, seconds before the explosion of social media. Adele’s name was bolstered when she performed on SNL, the same night Governor Sarah Palin who also appeared on the TV show which became the most watched episode in history. In Adele’s words, it was ‘pure luck’.
“We are a dying breed,” Adele said. “There was like 10 of us. You know, I don’t think there’ll ever be that many of us again at the top doing it the way we were doing it.
The battle for customer mindshare has become a grueling task and 2008 was a simpler time and the world was more unified. Politicians and influencers have infiltrated platforms that were once occupied by artists like Myspace. Everything changed in 2009. Adele slid through the cracks, moments before politics would dominate the discussion and social media would create distraction.
Adele’s friend posted her demo on Myspace, where it led to a phone call from Richard Russell, boss of the music label XL Recordings. It was more easy to stand out. Today, Spotify has more than 70 million tracks with more than 60,000 uploaded to the service every day.
Adele says: “We came out before streaming. We came out before all the social media frenzies of like, ‘You’ve got five seconds to entertain; otherwise, get out’. We existed in the old school-ness of the industry that we grew up watching and aspiring to [be part of].”
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