Newly bleached blonde bouffant a little askew, Adele Laurie Blue Adkins clasps her hands at her waist and begins to dish. "I came home from touring with my first album, and I caught up with some friends, trying to be all posh and stuff," she tells a rapt audience. "A nice lunch, some cocktails, pretending we were in 'Sex and the City.'" She pauses and tilts her head. "I'm a Miranda" -- the show's brainy, pragmatic but sexually liberated character -- "don't know about you, girls... and boys!" She winks, clicks her tongue and then reflexively cackles, the most guttural, life-loving cackle, rumbling from the diaphragm. She tosses her hair back, plants her hands on her hips and explains why the song she's about to sing -- "Rumor Has It," from her multiplatinum second album, "21" -- was written as a tongue-in-cheek "fackawff" to friends with the wrong idea about her love life. Then, Adele launches into the song, a Motown-invoking blues number that showcases the scratchy kick in the back of her vocal runs.

That's a clip from the DVD "Adele Live at the Royal Albert Hall" (released Nov. 29), a document of the zippy 23-year-old singer cursing and wisecracking in one of the world's classiest venues. It's also a microscopic view into why Adele has captured the imagination of the world.

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But then there was Adele, who represented something like austerity. She's raw in every way, whether regaling fans from the stage or channeling emotion through her unforgettable alto on wax. She's a quintessential BFF; warm, intimate and personable even when she's entertaining thousands. She idolizes Bette Midler, who at first may seem like a curious role model for a woman of her young age. But they're both larger-than-life, consummate entertainers, playing up their brassiness to their advantage. It's the kind of swag that carries a career across decades.

"Adele knows how good she is. You can't underestimate that. Artists that tend to work long term, most of them tend to have a clear-cut idea of who they are," says Rob Stringer, chairman/CEO of Columbia Records, her U.S. label. "Adele can kind of do it all. She's never cocky... but she doesn't fear to tread, ever."

Still, how did a hyper-real, refreshingly thick, British singer manage to captivate -- and subvert -- a notoriously difficult American pop audience? On her sophomore album, no less, and two years after her debut? This year, "21" became this year's No. 1 seller in America (4.8 million units sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan) and in the world (13 million copies worldwide, according to the label) in just 11 months. It's a testimony of "21's" broad appeal, which blends earlier soul and gospel influences with traditional country music, a style she picked up while playing in the States with a tour bus driver from Nashville.

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"She said she wanted to make an organic album that was of one sound, not a patchwork quilt of different-sounding tracks pieced together," says Rick Rubin, who recorded and produced the bulk of "21." "Her songwriting and voice unifies the album."

Clearly the secret to "21's" success: Virtually anyone can relate to the album's gut-wrenching heartbreak story. Adele is a real girl, down to her vintage dresses and average body size, and superstardom doesn't exempt her from earthly troubles.

"I'm never self-conscious and never have been," Adele writes in an email. (She's recovering from throat surgery that removed a benign polyp from her vocal cords and was instructed by her doctors not to speak.) "The thought of changing yourself or toning yourself down, or up for that matter, to please someone else seems ridiculous to me."

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Her confidence translates to the audience. "She has a natural ability to communicate things in an honest way," says Richard Russell, head of London-based XL Recordings, where she signed in 2006 after the label discovered her on Myspace. "In a world where things have gotten so incredibly complicated, and overdone, and overpackaged, and overthought, overwrought-what you get with her is her personality and her music."

Still, there was also a remarkable amount of strategy involved in breaking Adele this big, and a battle plan that ultimately hinged on an unusually long lead time, practically unheard of for a major-label artist of Adele's stature.

Rewind to June 2010. After taking a full year to pour the remnants of a crippling breakup into "21," recorded in Malibu, Calif., with Rubin and in London with Paul Epworth, Adele was ready to play it for her labels. The album was initially scheduled to be released in November 2010, but after hearing it, Columbia chairman/COO Steve Barnett made the key decision to push its release to the top of the year, giving the label a full six months to set up a strategy.

Having the music that far in advance was a coup, so the team at Columbia used it to its advantage, taking the album (and sometimes Adele) out to major potential partners to preview.

"We didn't expect to sell this many records, but everybody knew it was brilliant," Stringer says. "Now did we think that it would sell 2 million, 1 million? That wasn't the conversation. But everybody thought it was great, so we went out on the road and played it to five retailers in three days."

The music was undeniable, and when Adele was present -- whether at manufacturers or TV stations -- she charmed every staffer into oblivion. "She was literally sitting in the middle of a conference room with the staff of VH1, pouring them tea and asking them what they thought," Columbia director of video promotion Grace Lee says.

NEXT: "Rolling in the Deep" Hits Radio, Adele Maintains Her Privacy