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On novemberxlmidaxcxbpibpieubritYour browser does not support the element. 23rd a staggeringly successful British producer and exporter, a national champion in a business at which the country excels, suspended operations. Were the business carmaking or banking, questions would surely have been asked in Parliament. Instead it is music, and the champion is Adele, a writer and singer of heartbreaking songs, who finished a two-year residency in Las Vegas.Adele Adkins, as she is known to her bank manager but to nobody else, has told interviewers and audiences that she has no plans for new music and will not perform again “for an incredibly long time”. Perhaps. Musicians can have long, sinuous careers, especially if they lay off the drugs and booze: The Eagles, an American rock band who broke up in 1980, are currently playing in Las Vegas. But Adele is such a star that even an extended pause is bad for the music business. Worse, it seems unlikely that Britain will be able to produce anybody to replace her.She signed with Recordings, an independent label in London that was known for rave and grime music, in 2006—hardly a propitious year. The music industry was being crushed by digital piracy. Chris Anderson had just published “The Long Tail”, a book that explained how technology was ending the tyranny of the hit and enabling businesses to prosper by selling lots of not-too-popular things. Adele proceeded to prove that the biggest acts are subject to different forces.She has released four albums, each named for her age when she worked on them. All went to number one in Britain. In America, “25” sold faster in its first week of release than any album since records began. It accounted for 3% of the entire American album market in 2015—by far the largest annual share held by any release since at least 1992, according to Matthew Ball, who follows media at Epyllion (and sometimes contributes to . Her latest, “30”, sold modestly only when compared with her past performance.Other musical stars have built careers as clothiers, actors, perfumiers and prolific tourers. Adele has shown little interest in the first three, and, although good at it, has struggled with performing live. “Behind the eyes it’s pure fear,” she once said. Instead, she specialises in the old-fashioned business of making and selling albums, particularly the kind you can touch (Ed Sheeran, another British singing success, is better at racking up streams). Adele appeals so widely that her fans include old people who thought piracy dishonest and find streaming confusing.“She’s strange by today’s standards, but not by yesterday’s standards,” says Mark Mulligan, a music analyst at i Research. Had she been born a decade later, success would have been harder. Mr Mulligan points out that Adele, and other stars like , amassed devoted followings in the days when many people still acquired albums and listened to them repeatedly. In the there is always a new track to sample, and people are herded into musical niches by algorithms. Newer stars like Charli burn faintly and flickeringly by comparison.Music executives everywhere worry about the future supply of stadium-fillers. In Britain the , which represents record labels, frets that the country’s artists now account for less than 10% of worldwide tracks streamed. That is mostly because of the global rise of streaming. But Sophie Jones, the ’s chief strategy officer, points out that some governments, notably South Korea’s, have lavished attention and money on pop music. Britain has made matters worse by leaving the ; that has flung up barriers to touring acts.The country has important advantages. Its people are culturally diverse and English-speaking. It has strong intellectual property rights. It also has the School, a state school in south London founded in 1991, which specialises in the performing arts. A remarkable number of successful musicians, including Adele, Raye and the late Amy Winehouse, went there. A second school, funded by the music industry, is expected to open in a few years’ time in Bradford. Britain will produce more pop stars—but, probably, not another Adele.
