Adele

If you mounted all Adele’s achievements, awards, accolades and sales graphs on a wall, you’d need a sizeable chunk of that great one in China. Since graduating from a London Performing Arts school in 2006, Adele’s career could quite reasonably be described as phenomenal.

Starting with her age-related album 19, which was a Top 5 album in a dozen or more countries, the powerfully voiced singer has gone from teenage diva to world conquering recording artist with a style spanning soul, folk-country and of course widescreen ballads of emotional turmoil. Those familiar with the seminal British documentary series "Up" might smile at the self-referential series of album titles: 19, 21, 25, 30 but there is no doubting her appeal to the demographic that, depending on birth year, connected with Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige or Amy Winehouse.

In 2021, as well as her 'Hello Thirty!' album, sales data in the UK resulted in Adele being named 'Best selling female artist of the 21st century'.