Billie Eilish is just 17 years old. She has a billion plays with hardly any radio support. In fact, she doesn’t write radio hits, but she’s received tons of attention, especially from the media. You can chalk it up to good marketing but I really think Billie has the knack of captivating an audience through photos and videos. She’s a new kind of star.
She insists on near-complete control. “I could easily just be like, you know what, you’re going to pick out my clothes, someone else will come up with my video treatments, someone else will direct them and I won’t have anything to do with them,” Eilish said. “Someone else write my music, someone else produce it, and I won’t say anything about it. Someone else run my Instagram.”
“Everything could be easier if I wanted it to,” she continued. “But I’m not that kind of person and I’m not that kind of artist. And I’d rather die than be that kind of artist.”
Also, rather than working with typical go-to pop producers, most of her songs are written with her 21 year old brother. She’s kept everything in-house. With all that, she’s looking to score the second biggest debut of the year.
Isabella Rose, aka Sabel, has just released her latest track Mirth Drive. The acoustic-folk track blends artists like Civil Wars, Ingrid Michaelson, and Kacey Musgraves. Sabel tells Kings, “Mirth Drive is the second single off my upcoming EP. It is the most introspective song I’ve written, but I also wanted to make it about the people around me. When you’re in college, you go through a lot of changes. People you know change, your surroundings change and most of all, you change. So I wanted to write about how it felt to look down upon these past few years. It’s basically like a diary entry for my whole post high-school experience.” While picking up blog support, she’s performed at The Bitter End, Rockwood Music Hall as well as opened for the popular America’s Got Talent winner, Grace Vanderwaal.
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AMOYLC (Approachable Members of Your Local Community) releases a great uptempo electro pop track One I Need that features Heaps Good Friends. The 7-piece tells Kings, “Our new track, One I Need, is about all those people that you feel you want in your life, but maybe you don’t actually really need them.” The indie-pop/soul act first gained some buzz with the release of Millennium Queen which has a Red Hot Chili Peppers vibe and landed on the Spotify Australia’s Viral 50. You can check them out on 4/25 at The Gasometer Hotel in Collingwood, VIC, Australia
Ariana Grande revealed she’ll drop a new song with singer and songwriter Victoria Monét.
man, let’s drop it tomorrow night @VictoriaMonet ? seven rings is ab to be number one for eight weeks and the album might go back to no. 1 too…. we need to celebrate tbh ! life too short and too sweet rn. ??♂️ hmmmmmmm.
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) March 28, 2019
This means, no pre-release strategy, teasers, and radio station visits. To make sure the public is aware, artists typically promote their music releases from weeks to even months before the actual release.
In fact, Grande revealed that promo runs were taken a toll on her health and that impulsive releases were easier.
“Jus [sic] saying, thanks for being supportive of my random, impulsive and excessive music releases. The first few years of this were really hard on my mental health and energy.” “I was so tired from promo trips and was always losing my voice and never knew what city I was in when I woke up,” she added. “It was so much. It was worth it and I am grateful for everything I learned and accomplished when I did things that way, of course.”
She earlier said:
“We have to do the teaser before the single, then do the single, and wait to do the preorder, and radio has to impact before the video, and we have to do the discount on this day, and all this (expletive). It’s just like, ‘Bruh, I just want to (expletive) talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do. Why do they get to make records like that and I don’t?’ So I do and I did and I am, and I will continue to.”
Of course, once you have an audience like Ariana, you can drop singles. With a new artist, although tiring, promotional runs are a necessity.
I really like Heartbreaker by Zinn. It’s dark, haunting, syncable and has a infectious chant. Citing Bebe Rexha, Halsey, and Jessie Reyez her latest single follows her debut track Rise Above. Zinn tells Kings, “Heartbreaker is about women not wanting to be the bad guy, but finding strength within herself to leave a very toxic relationship she thought she’d be in forever.” The Utah native will roll out more singles in the coming months and will release an EP. Check out her interview with Vents Mag.