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Adele · S2 E2
The Classmates
Leona Lewis is in the year above. Jessie J is in the year below. Kate Nash is down the corridor. The talent density is absurd.
September 2003, a corridor in Selhurst, Croydon. A fifteen-year-old from West Norwood walks past classrooms full of singers, dancers, and producers, and realizes for the first time that she is not the most talented person in the room.
Adele, "Cold Shoulder" (official music video, 2008). Produced by Mark Ronson with a Motown-influenced rhythm section and vintage soul horns. From her debut album 19, this is the track that proved she could do more than make you cry.
Cold Shoulder
Produced by Mark Ronson, "Cold Shoulder" channels the vintage soul and Motown records Adele discovered at the BRIT School. The arrangement features a full horn section, a walking bass, and a rhythm that swings harder than anything else on 19. Ronson wanted the production to sound like it was recorded in 1965. The song is about giving someone the silent treatment after being let down, and Adele delivers it with the cold precision the title demands.
The Talent Factory
The BRIT School during Adele's years is stacked with future stars. Jessie J is at the school at the same time, and the two hang out during lunchtimes, singing songs they've written. Kate Nash is down the corridor. Leona Lewis recently left, going on to win The X Factor in 2006. They don't know it yet, but this one school in Croydon will produce more chart-topping British artists than any institution in the country.
Sources
Jessie J, Nice to Meet You (autobiography), 2012
Adele, NME, 2015
“Contrary to reports, me and Amy didn't really know each other, we weren't friends or anything like that. I went to Brit School and she went for a little while. But a million per cent if I hadn't heard 'Frank' this wouldn't have happened. I adored her.”
— Adele
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Jessie J say about hanging out with Adele at the BRIT School?
Which of these artists was NOT a classmate of Adele's at the BRIT School?
I Miss You, Adele (2015)
From 25 (2015). A slow, aching track produced with Paul Epworth that pulses like a heartbeat beneath Adele's vocal. Written about a lover, but it captures something universal: the feeling of looking back on a time before everything changed.
I Miss You, Adele (2015)
Read the lyrics while you listen. The yearning in the chorus is for something she can't quite name. A slow pulse underneath, and a voice that fills every silence.
BRIT School Class
The classmates push her, the teachers notice the voice, and the school gives her a stage. But one song, written at sixteen after a fight with her mother, is about to become the demo that changes everything.
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