Chasing Pavements
Encyclopedia
"Chasing Pavements" is the second single from soul
singer Adele
. Adele performed the song on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
on 7 December 2007.
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 19 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.
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
and has sold over 1,200,000 digital copies as of October 2011.
"Chasing Pavements" won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year
and Grammy Award for Song of the Year
.
, which earned a 2008 MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best Choreography, centres around a car crash (a white Peugeot 505
sedan) occurring in Hyde Park, London
. It was directed by Mathew Cullen of production company Motion Theory.
It features two views: one of the real-world 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. Adele is seen in the first view, inside a car with a man. She sings before getting out of the car and walking past a group of people who are running towards the crash victims. Then, she stands beside a tree continuing to sing until it ends and the victims 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.
In the second view, the couple 'comes to life' and move as if standing up. The couple appear to reenact their relationship, starting from their first meeting when the woman dropped her scarf and the man handed it back to her. For a while they appear happy together, but it is short-lived; the man discovers that the woman had another lover. She writes something on a piece of paper and when the man reads it, he is angered, but he forgives her and they begin rekindling the passion they had before the crash. When Adele sings the chorus for the final time, the couple dance on the pavement surrounded by the onlookers, who are now also dancing. The man and the woman dance gracefully and intimately, but in spite of all the joy, they are still just two bodies lying motionless on the pavement, and are then wheeled away by ambulance crews in different directions.
On 20 December 2008, the video was ranked #26 on VH1
's Top 40 of 2008.
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
.
s 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.
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
singer Adele
Adele (singer)
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins , known professionally as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter. She was the first recipient of the Brit Awards Critics' Choice and was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2008 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2008...
. Adele performed the song on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross was a British comedy chat show presented by Jonathan Ross. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 2 November 2001. The programme featured Ross's take on current topics of conversation, guest interviews and live music from both a guest music group and the house band...
on 7 December 2007.
It was released digitally
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
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 19 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.
It was featured in three episodes of Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...
. The first was in a concluding scene of Hannah Ashworth
Hannah Ashworth
Hannah Rose Ashworth is a fictional character from long-running Channel 4 soap opera, Hollyoaks, played by Emma Rigby. Hannah first appeared on-screen from October 3, 2005 until her exit on February 12, 2010....
's anorexia. The second was in a beginning scene of Charlie Dean's custody battle. The third was in a scene showing Dominic Reilly
Dominic Reilly
Dominic "Dom" Reilly is a fictional character from the long-running Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, played by John Pickard. Dom made his first appearance on 13 September 2005 as the estranged half-brother of Tony Hutchinson, whose portrayer, Nick Pickard, is John Pickard's brother...
reflecting on Tina McQueen
Tina McQueen
Tina Chastity Reilly is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, played by Leah Hackett. Since making her first appearance in August 2006 as part of the McQueen family, Tina has been involved in storylines including sexual harassment and surrogacy.-Character...
talking to him, which was aired on the 15 October. The song was also featured in Wild Child
Wild Child (film)
Wild Child is a 2008 American/British/French teen romantic dramedy film starring Emma Roberts, Alex Pettyfer and Natasha Richardson. The film made its American television premiere on ABC Family on August 8, 2010.-Plot:...
, starring Emma Roberts
Emma Roberts
Emma Rose Roberts is an American actress, model and singer. She is the daughter of actor Eric Roberts and niece of Julia Roberts. Roberts became known for her role as Addie Singer in the Nickelodeon television series Unfabulous. She released her debut album, which also served as the show's...
and the late Natasha Richardson
Natasha Richardson
Natasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
and TV shows such as 90210
90210 (TV series)
90210 is an American teen drama television series developed by Rob Thomas, Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs, and the fourth series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise created by Darren Star. 90210 is the first series produced by CBS Productions under the company's re-launch, but is now produced by CBS...
. Adele performed "Chasing Pavements" along with "Cold Shoulder
Cold Shoulder (song)
"Cold Shoulder" is the third single from soul singer Adele released from her debut album 19. It was released digitally in Ireland on 30 March 2008 and in the UK on 31 March 2008. This is the only song on the album to be produced by Mark Ronson. Ex-Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender plays on the song...
" on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
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
Sam Cooke
Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...
song. It's Adele's first top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
and has sold over 1,200,000 digital copies as of October 2011.
"Chasing Pavements" won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance is the latest in a series of awards recognizing superior vocal performance by a female in the pop category, the first of which was presented in 1959. The award goes to the artist...
, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year
Grammy Award for Record of the Year
The Record of the Year is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards presented annually. It has been awarded since 1959.-History:The honorees through its history have been:*1959-1965: Artist only.*1966-1998: Artist and producer....
and Grammy Award for Song of the Year
Grammy Award for Song of the Year
The Song of the Year is one of the four most prestigious awards in the Grammy Awards ceremony, if not in all of the American music industry. It has been awarded since 1959 and unlike the Record of the Year award, which goes to the performer and production team of a single song, Song of the Year...
.
Lyrical meaning
The song was inspired by an incident Adele had with a former boyfriend of six months. 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. After being thrown out, Adele walked down the street alone and thought to herself, "What is it you're chasing? You're chasing an empty pavement." She sang into it and recorded it on her mobile phone and arranged three chords when she got home.Music video
The song's music videoMusic video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
, which earned a 2008 MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best Choreography, centres around a car crash (a white Peugeot 505
Peugeot 505
The Peugeot 505 is a large family car produced by the French manufacturer Peugeot from 1979 to 1992 in Sochaux, France. The 505 was Peugeot's last rear-wheel drive car...
sedan) occurring in Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
. It was directed by Mathew Cullen of production company Motion Theory.
It features two views: one of the real-world 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. Adele is seen in the first view, inside a car with a man. She sings before getting out of the car and walking past a group of people who are running towards the crash victims. Then, she stands beside a tree continuing to sing until it ends and the victims 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.
In the second view, the couple 'comes to life' and move as if standing up. The couple appear to reenact their relationship, starting from their first meeting when the woman dropped her scarf and the man handed it back to her. For a while they appear happy together, but it is short-lived; the man discovers that the woman had another lover. She writes something on a piece of paper and when the man reads it, he is angered, but he forgives her and they begin rekindling the passion they had before the crash. When Adele sings the chorus for the final time, the couple dance on the pavement surrounded by the onlookers, who are now also dancing. The man and the woman dance gracefully and intimately, but in spite of all the joy, they are still just two bodies lying motionless on the pavement, and are then wheeled away by ambulance crews in different directions.
On 20 December 2008, the video was ranked #26 on VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
's Top 40 of 2008.
Controversy
According to the Daily MailDaily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
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
Urban Dictionary
Urban Dictionary is a Web-based dictionary of slang words and phrases, which contained over 6 million definitions . Submissions are regulated by volunteer editors and rated by site visitors...
.
51st Grammy Awards
"Chasing Pavements" was nominated for three Grammy AwardGrammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s at the 2009 Grammy Awards. The track had received nominations in the categories of Record of The Year
Grammy Award for Record of the Year
The Record of the Year is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards presented annually. It has been awarded since 1959.-History:The honorees through its history have been:*1959-1965: Artist only.*1966-1998: Artist and producer....
, Song of the Year
Grammy Award for Song of the Year
The Song of the Year is one of the four most prestigious awards in the Grammy Awards ceremony, if not in all of the American music industry. It has been awarded since 1959 and unlike the Record of the Year award, which goes to the performer and production team of a single song, Song of the Year...
and for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance is the latest in a series of awards recognizing superior vocal performance by a female in the pop category, the first of which was presented in 1959. The award goes to the artist...
. It won the award for the Best Female Vocal Performance, beating established singers such as Pink
Pink (singer)
Alecia Beth Moore , better known by her stage name Pink , is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actress....
and Leona Lewis
Leona Lewis
Leona Louise Lewis is a British singer and songwriter. Lewis first came to prominence in 2006 when she won the third series of the British television series The X Factor....
but lost out to Coldplay
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London. After they formed Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish. Will Champion joined as a...
's "Viva la Vida" in the Song of the Year category and to Robert Plant
Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...
's and Alison Krauss
Alison Krauss
Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in...
' collaboration, "Please Read the Letter
Please Read the Letter
"Please Read the Letter" is a song originally recorded by Robert Plant and Jimmy Page for the 1998 album Walking into Clarksdale. It was released as the second single off the album....
", in the Record of the Year category. She performed "Chasing Pavements" with Sugarland.
Track listing
UK – CD and 7" vinyl- "Chasing Pavements" (Adele, Eg WhiteEg WhiteFrancis Anthony "Eg" White is a British musician, songwriter and producer. White is primarily known for his work with successful commercial pop acts such as Adele, Duffy, Will Young and James Morrison...
) – 3:31 - "That's It, I Quit, I'm Movin' On" (live) (Sam CookeSam CookeSamuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...
) – 2:12
Release history
| Region | Date |
|---|---|
| Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
11 January 2008 |
| United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
14 January 2008 |
Charts
| Chart (2008) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Ireland (IRMA Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured... ) |
7 |
| Italy (FIMI) | 7 |
| Netherlands (Dutch Top 40 Dutch Top 40 The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting... ) |
9 |
| UK Singles (The Official Charts Company UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... ) |
2 |
| US Adult Contemporary (Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... ) |
23 |
| US Pop 100 Pop 100 The Pop 100 was a songs chart that debuted in February 2005 and was released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States until its discontinuation in 2009... (Billboard Billboard (magazine) Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis... ) |
28 |
Year-end charts
| Chart (2008) | Position |
|---|---|
| Dutch Singles Chart | 36 |
| UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
27 |
Certifications
| Country | Certification |
|---|---|
| Canada Cria A cria is the name for a baby camelid such as a llama, alpaca, vicuña, or guanaco. It comes from the Spanish word cría, meaning "baby". Its false cognate in English, crya , was coined by British sailors who explored Chile in the 18th century and were quick to describe the camelids onomatopoeically... |
Gold |
| Norway VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
Gold |
| United Kingdom British Phonographic Industry The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies... |
Silver |
| United States Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States... |
Platinum |