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Chasing Pavements

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"Chasing Pavements"
Song
B-side"That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On (Live)"

"Chasing Pavements" is the second single from soul singer Adele. Adele performed the song on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on 7 December 2007.[1] It was released digitally in Ireland on 13 January 2008 and entered the Irish singles chart at number 26 through download sales alone. Having received a physical release, the single then leaped nineteen places to number seven, where it peaked. On 20 January, the single entered at number two in the UK singles chart on downloads alone. Chasing Pavements was the 27th best selling single of 2008 in the UK, with over 280,000 sales.

On 3 December 2008, "Chasing Pavements" was nominated for Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. It has won the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.[2] It was featured in three episodes of Hollyoaks. The first was in a concluding scene of Hannah Ashworth's anorexia. The second was in a beginning scene of Charlie Dean's custody battle. The third was in a scene showing Dominic Reilly reflecting on Tina McQueen talking to him, which was aired on the 15 October. The song was also featured in Wild Child, starring Emma Roberts and the late Natasha Richardson and TV shows such as 90210. Adele performed "Chasing Pavements" along with "Cold Shoulder" on Saturday Night Live on October 18, 2008. The B-side to the single, "That's It. I Quit. I'm Movin' On.", is an acoustic cover of a Sam Cooke song. It's Adele's first top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lyrical meaning

The song was inspired by an incident Adele had with a former boyfriend of six months.[3] At 6:00 AM one morning, after learning he had cheated on her, she went to the bar he was at and punched him in the face.[3] After being thrown out, Adele ran down the street alone and thought to herself, "What is it you're chasing? You're chasing an empty pavement."[4][5] She sang it into and recorded it on her mobile and arranged three chords when she got home.[3]

Music video

The song's music video, which earned a 2008 MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best Choreography, centres around a car crash occurring in Hyde Park. It was directed by Mathew Cullen of production company Motion Theory.[6]

It features two views of this: one the real-world view in which the occupants of the car are lying motionless on the pavement following the accident, and the other (during the choruses) in which the camera shows them from above. In the second view, the couple 'come to life' and move as if standing up. The couple appear to reenact their relationship, from first meeting and the initial joy, then the despair caused by the woman having another lover, then forgiveness and rekindling the passion again before the accident. During the video, Adele was seen inside the car with a man and sings. Then, she gets out of the car and walks past a group of people running towards the dead couple. Then, she stands beside a tree continued singing the song while a group of people starts joining in to dance with the dead couple. The music video finally ends with both being shown on stretchers, being wheeled away in different directions by ambulance crews tending to them. Adele is not one of the car crash victims; instead she is an onlooker.

On 20 December 2008, the video was ranked #26 on VH1's Top 40 of 2008.

Controversy

According to The Daily Mail the single has been banned by several U.S. radio stations because of the perceived meaning of the words "chasing pavements" referring to the singer chasing gay men. The source of the perceived meaning is said to come from an entry submitted to Urban Dictionary.[7]

51st Grammy Awards

Chasing Pavements was nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 2009 Grammy Awards. The track had received nominations in the categories of Record of The Year, Song of the Year and for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. It won the award for the Best Female Vocal Performance, beating established singers such as Pink and Leona Lewis but lost out to Coldplay's Viva la Vida in the Song of the Year category and to Robert Plant's and Alison Krauss' collaboration, Please Read the Letter, in the Record of the Year category. She performed Chasing Pavements with Sugarland.

Track listing

UK - CD & 7" Vinyl

  1. "Chasing Pavements" (Adele, Eg White) 3:31
  2. "That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On (Live)" (Sam Cooke) 2:12

Release history

Region Date
Europe 11 January 2008
United Kingdom 14 January 2008

Charts

Preceded by Norwegian VG-lista number-one single
12 March 2008 – 26 March 2008 		Succeeded by

References

  1. ^ "Jonathan Ross welcomes Lucas, Walliams, Seinfeld and Zellweger". 2007-12-07. Retrieved 2008-01-27.
  2. ^ The 51st Annual Grammy Awards Nominations List 3 December, 2008
  3. ^ a b c Frehsée, Nicole (January 22, 2009), "Meet Adele, the U.K.'s Newest Soul Star". Rolling Stone. (1070):26
  4. ^ Interview: Adele - Singer and Songwriter BlogCriticsMagazine 16 July 2008
  5. ^ Dawson, Kim (24 March 2008). "ADELE'S BI GUY". Daily Star.
  6. ^ Coldplay and Adele snag VMA nods Virgin Media 28 August, 2008
  7. ^ "'Americans think that I'm chasing gay men,' says Adele as she reveals hit song radio ban", The Daily Mail, p. 1, September 10, 2008, retrieved 28-02-2010 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  8. ^ "Adele – Chasing Pavements" (in German). Ö3 Austria Top 40.
  9. ^ "Adele – Chasing Pavements" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50.
  10. ^ "Adele – Chasing Pavements" (in French). Ultratop 50.
  11. ^ "Adele Chart History (Canadian Hot 100)". Billboard.
  12. ^ "Adele – Chasing Pavements". Tracklisten.
  13. ^ Steffen Hung. "Discography Adele". irishcharts.com. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  14. ^ Steffen Hung. "Adele - Chasing Pavements". italiancharts.com. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  15. ^ "Adele - Chasing Pavements - Music Charts". Acharts.us. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  16. ^ "Adele – Chasing Pavements". VG-lista.
  17. ^ "Adele – Chasing Pavements". Singles Top 100.
  18. ^ "ADELE - The Official Charts Company". Theofficialcharts.com. Retrieved 2011-02-20.
  19. ^ "Adele Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard.
  20. ^ http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.vnuArtistId=810846&model.vnuAlbumId=1104726
  21. ^ "Adele Chart History (Adult Pop Songs)". Billboard.
  22. ^ [1][dead link]
  23. ^ "http://dutchcharts.nl/jaaroverzichten.asp?year=2008&cat=s". dutchcharts.nl (in Dutch). {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |title= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  24. ^ "http://www.ukchartsplus.co.uk/ChartsPlusYE2008.pdf". UKChartsPlus. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |title= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
  25. ^ http://www.cria.ca/cert_db_search.php
  26. ^ http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH_RESULTS&artist=Adele&format=&go=Search&perPage=50
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