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Unlikely to ever appear in a giant egg, Adele’s everyday universality has let her talent translate into phenomenal sales Last week Adele’s second album, 21, sold 257,000 copies in the UK , a sales figure that would look incredible as an opening sales week for any album by any global superstar. The fact that the album was celebrating its 10th week at No 1, and that each of the previous nine weeks it had sold over 100,000 copies, makes what Adele has achieved look miraculous. The last female singer to spend that long at No 1 in the UK was Madonna in 1990 with her greatest hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection. For Adele, the success of 21 is part of a perfect storm of talent, timing and a connection that’s transcended gender, age and credibility. But what does it say about the state of the music industry? Does Adele’s success signal a return to the mid-noughties musical depression, when the likes of James Blunt dominated the charts? Her success may well lead to a glut of similar acts aiming for an MOR audience, but that’s more the fault of an industry desperate to recreate any kind of success by creating poor facsimiles until the world shouts “stop now”. What seems to have set Adele apart is her apparent ordinariness, bar that incredible voice. While Gaga parades around in a dress made of meat and Beyoncé orbits a world out of touch to the majority of most human beings, Adele’s chain-smoking, girl-you’d-like-to-go-to-the-pub-with persona stands out. Even for a British act, her unstarriness goes against trend, with fellow Brit school alumnus Jessie J adopting a very American habit of over-emoting, talking about a ” journey ” and making the idea of being a pop star seem fairly arduous. It’s this universality and broad appeal that’s helped her translate talent into sales. While the first single from 21, Rolling in the Deep, appealed to Radio 1 listeners and bloggers with production by Paul Epworth and a remix by Jamie from the xx, the second single, Someone Like You, is a Radio 2 staple, a stripped-back, piano-augmented ballad that silenced the cavernous O2 Arena during this year’s Brit Awards . The broadsheet press can write pages and pages on her safe in the knowledge that there’s enough of a muso connection – Rick Rubin worked on the album, there’s a cover of the Cure, Mumford & Sons were an influence – while the gossip magazines have latched onto the fact that the album is one long break-up record, eager to find the ex. In 1990, Madonna was a global superstar with a back catalogue of era-defining hits to her name. She was untouchable and, tellingly, unknowable. She was (and still is) a megastar, but a megastar of a different age. These days, we want to know a bit more about our artists; that they have relationship problems, walk their dog. Her selling point and appeal is precisely the fact that she exists at the point between everyday ordinariness and pop star. She’s not boring, but at the same time she’s probably unlikely to arrive at the Grammys in a giant egg. Her success is testament to the power of good songs and the fact that if you can create a buzz (as she did in November with a stark reading of Someone Like You on Jools Holland) and harness that buzz through a solid album, then it can still translate to sales. For now, Adele’s success should be celebrated, not least for becoming an unlikely global star on her own terms. The danger is that we’re headed for a glut of fairly “beige” pop, a situation that led to the “birth” of Gaga a few years back. Pop goes in cycles and it feels like we’re headed back towards the very middle of MOR. Adele Pop and rock Celebrity Michael Cragg guardian.co.uk