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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alex Warren's Debut Album Is the Sound of a Chart-Topping Artist Finding His Way
Is it too early for 2010s nostalgia? Singer-songwriter Alex Warren doesn't seem to think so — and neither do the streaming listeners and radio programmers who have made his sweeping love song 'Ordinary' an unlikely pick for 2025's song of the summer. The ballad has had a stubborn grip on the Hot 100's top spot for six of the past seven weeks — it briefly ceded Number One to Sabrina Carpenter's twangy, fizzy 'Manchild' in June — thanks in part to its an amalgam of Imagine Dragons' brute-force rock and The Lumineers' 'hey'-along folk-pop, with a frisson of Hozier's religious imagery adding to the tension. Warren's song might be a surprising hot-weather hit, but he's been preparing himself for stardom since he was a teen posting skateboarding videos online. Becoming a social media sensation was partly a survival tactic; his father passed died of kidney cancer when he was nine, and his relationship with his mother deteriorated in the ensuing years to the point where she kicked him out of the house when he turned 18. Shortly after that, the Southern California native helped found the Hype House, a Los Angeles where upper-echelon TikTokers lived and created together. More from Rolling Stone Alex Warren's Not-So-Ordinary Rise to the Top Why Does Everything Sound Like an Audition Song for 'The Voice'? WNBA All-Star Players Wear 'Pay Us What You Owe Us' T-Shirts During Warm-Up In 2021, Warren began releasing music, and his debut single, 'One More I Love You,' laid out what would become his musical aesthetic pretty clearly: It's a tense folk-pop ballad with a big chorus and lyrics that glance at his troubled past ('Mom's knees deep in alcohol/But I'm drowning,' he sings on the pre-chorus) led by his voice, a sturdy burr that's accented by a judicious use of vibrato. 'Releasing art that relates to people who share that struggle with anxiety and mental health issues, a struggle that can feel lonely and confusing, feels really powerful and beautiful to me,' he told Rolling Stone in 2022. You'll Be Alright, Kid, Warren's debut, is a 21-track double album, although he's not making an audacious of a statement as that description makes it seem — last fall he released the 10-track EP You'll Be Alright, Kid, and it makes up this record's second half. Just by looking at the first disc's track listing, one can see how Warren's star has risen in the past 10 months; it includes cameos from catharsis crooner Jelly Roll and shape-shifting BLACKPINK member ROSÉ, in addition to the blockbuster single that's placed smack in its middle. Warren is an appealing personality, but it doesn't always translate on You'll Be Alright, Kid, which too often feels mired in the self-seriousness of hoary post-grunge and stomp-and-holler folk-pop. Choruses like the refrain of the ROSÉ collab 'On My Mind' don't arrive as much as they explode; backing singers overpower every emotional moment on tracks like 'First Time on Earth' — which is a biblically inspired note of forgiveness to his parents, a sentiment that's more than able to stand on its own without the musical equivalent of neon signs alerting listeners to its importance. When he switches things up a bit, the record comes up for air. On the punchy 'Getaway Car,' Warren possesses enough swagger to make his curled upper lip audible; 'Everything' is a swirling piano-led cut that doesn't overpower its heightened lyrics ('You might as well/Take the breath from my lungs/The stars from the sky') with theatrics; the first-dance candidate 'Heaven Without You' shows how his tenderness can shine when not surrounded by cavernous drums and campfire singers. Too often, though, the material he's working with sounds reheated, reminding one of the days when the first iteration of American Idol was dominated by guitar-toting troubadours like Philip Phillips and when Mumford & Sons and Of Monsters and Men ruled the alt-rock charts. Warren is still young — he turns 25 in September — and he still has time to chart his own artistic course in ways that show off his charm and musical curiosity while not discounting the trials he's endured en route to pop's highest heights. Best of Rolling Stone Sly and the Family Stone: 20 Essential Songs The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked Solve the daily Crossword


CBC
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Is there a song of the summer yet? The internet says no
We asked kids and they were stumped Many on the internet are wondering: where is the song of the summer for 2025? In the three weeks since summer officially started, there hasn't been one track that feels like the theme song to the season. According to many articles, posts and comments on social media platforms like X (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok and Reddit, we are in a 'summer slump' for music. Often, the song of the summer feels a lot more obvious. Last year, the tracks that topped 2024's songs of the summer lists — like Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar, or I Had Some Help by Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen — were everywhere. This year, we have … *crickets.* Music fans are taking to social media in search of the song of the summer. Many are wondering what the song will be. (Image credit: @imnotpopbase and @JanellePierzina/X) CBC Kids News took to the streets of Toronto, Ontario, to ask kids what they think the song of the summer has been. Many had trouble naming one. In fact, many of them picked older songs from previous years. Click play to hear which songs kids are rocking with this summer ⬇️⬇️⬇️ How is the song of the summer decided? There are a few different measures for determining the song of the summer. It's often a matter of personal opinion and preference — it's that one song you see and hear everywhere you go, from the radio to your social feeds to streaming playlists. But there are also more official ways to track it. Billboard, an American music publication, typically crowns its song of the summer every September. Billboard tracks how songs perform on its Hot 100 chart between late May and early September. The chart is cumulative, meaning it adds up all the radio plays, streams and sales from every week to keep a running total. As of mid-July, Alex Warren's song Ordinary is in the top spot, with songs by Drake and Morgan Wallen also climbing the charts. Make your pick Here are the top ten songs on Billboard's Song of the Summer chart as of July 18. Do any of these songs sum up summer 2025 for you? Have more questions? Want to tell us how we're doing? Use the 'send us feedback' link below. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Alex Warren has a chart-topping hit with 'Ordinary.' So why is he his own 'No. 1 hater'?
Of all the pop hits vying to become the song of the summer, Alex Warren's 'Ordinary' might be the most improbable: A stark and brooding ballad full of lurid Christian imagery — 'Shatter me with your touch / Oh Lord, return me to dust,' goes one line — it's about a guy seeking the kind of sexual-spiritual fulfillment not typically found on the beach or at a barbecue. Yet the song, which has more than 720 million streams on Spotify, just logged its sixth week since early June atop Billboard's Hot 100 — more than a month longer at No. 1 than Sabrina Carpenter's 'Manchild,' to name one of the sunnier tunes soundtracking the season. (Among Warren's other competitors: Drake, who posted an image of the current chart on Instagram on Monday showing his song 'What Did I Miss?' at No. 2 behind Warren's hit. 'I'm taking that soon don't worry,' the rapper wrote.) 'Ordinary's' somber tone is all the more striking given that Warren — whose father died when he was 9 and who grew up in Carlsbad with a single mother he's described as an abusive alcoholic — first made a name for himself as a founding member of Hype House, the early-2020s conclave of TikTokers known for beaming out goofy bite-size content from a rented mansion in Los Angeles. Half a decade later, Warren is still a faithful user of his TikTok account (with its 18.8 million followers), though these days he's mostly driving attention — often with the help of his wife, fellow influencer Kouvr Annon — to his music, which combines the moody theatrics of early Sam Smith with the highly buffed textures of Imagine Dragons. On Friday, Warren will release his debut LP, 'You'll Be Alright, Kid,' featuring guest appearances by Blackpink's Rosé and by Jelly Roll, who brought Warren to the stage at April's Stagecoach festival to sing 'Ordinary' and to premiere their duet 'Bloodline.' Warren, 24, discussed his journey during a recent trip to L.A. from his new home in Nashville, where he lives not far from Jelly Roll and Teddy Swims. 'I was just texting Teddy,' Warren says as we sit down. 'I got off tour and immediately was like, 'Oh, I want to buy a go-kart.' Teddy FaceTimes me, he goes, 'You a—hole. I'm trying to buy a go-kart right now too.' Apparently, I bought the last go-kart in Tennessee.' These are excerpts from our conversation. 'Ordinary' is clearly drawing on your identity as a Christian. Yet there's something almost sacrilegious about the song. I get that criticism a lot. To me it's what makes the song interesting — the erotic energy in a line like 'You got me kissing the ground of your sanctuary.' I'm worshiping my wife in a way — she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. You can't just write a song like that and be like, 'Oh, baby, you're my everything.' Everyone's already done 'You're my world,' you know? I wanted to do something different — almost Hozier-esque. I wrote into it being like, I really love my wife, and I have a relationship with God — that's something I can compare it to. As the song has gone out, I've heard a lot of Christians' opinions on it, and some people are like, 'F— this guy.' There's also so many people who think it's a super die-hard Christian song and don't like it either. I have to be OK with both sides hating me. You've led a peculiar life, which obviously lends context to your music for anyone who knows the details. Yet 'Ordinary' is big enough now that many listeners — maybe most listeners — are hearing it without knowing anything about new song I've been teasing ['Eternity'] is about grief, and people are like, 'I can't wait to play it at my wedding.' It's cool that people are making it their own. It reminds me of Lewis Capaldi's 'Someone You Loved,' where people were like, 'Oh my God, this is a breakup record.' No, he wrote it about his grandma. Are you a Capaldi fan?I love Lewis. I don't look like a Justin Bieber/Shawn Mendes traditional pop star, but it's cool because Lewis kind of made it popular to not give a f—. Lewis and Ed [Sheeran], I would say — I mean, I've seen Ed's closet, and it's just nine white Prada T-shirts. Read more: Justin Bieber is a chill, God-fearing bro on the messy yet beautiful 'Swag' You have an unusual you — I think? It's deeper than most pop voices right now. Does it seem unusual to you?No. I asked my wife, 'Do I have a basic voice?' She was like, 'What are you talking about?' I was like, 'I live with this voice, and I think it just sounds like every other bitch.' But I'm my No. 1 hater. I went back and looked at the series Netflix made about Hype House.I'm so sorry. There's some significant fluctuations in your weight, and I was wondering how working in a visual field from a pretty young age shaped your ideas about eating and I started making money, I didn't know what to do with it and I just used DoorDash every second I could. As time went on, especially in Hype House, you have so many people's opinions and everyone's pointing out your flaws, and the weight was definitely one of them. After that I was like, "OK, how do I fix this?" I'm 24 now — I was 22, 21 at the time, and I was like, "I should be in the best shape of my life." But it definitely does take a toll on you. Even now, if you go look at my TikTok comments, thousands of people are loving me. You go on Twitter, the first 400 comments are like, 'He's so ugly,' 'His nose is crooked,' all these things. It hits a point where you have a thousand people loving you, but those two people not — you're like, "Wait, are they the ones telling me the truth? Is everyone else just gassing me up?" Kind of such a strange career. I have the Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday, and I'm like, "Should I be eating this the next few days?" Would you say you're in a good place in terms of how you think about your physical appearance?Looking in the mirror, probably not. But when it comes to having to approve a photo, I don't give a s—. I'll approve whatever, double chin and all. Is that true?Truly, I don't mind, because I don't think people are watching my videos for my attractiveness. That being said, if I was lighter, I think I'd be happier looking at myself. But at the same time, I don't care because these songs to me are more about what they're about and less about how I look. Also, it gives me some leeway if someone catches me lacking at In-N-Out. You've said you don't really drink or do drugs but that you get drunk once a year. What would be the occasion?I just got drunk with Ed Sheeran — I drank two Modelos and I got put on my ass. This was at Santa's Pub [in Nashville] — me, Noah Kahan and Ed Sheeran. They had just played something, and Ed was like, 'Do you want a drink?' I was like, "If I'm getting drunk this year, it's getting drunk with Ed Sheeran." So he gave me a Modelo, and I was like, 'Whoa, I'm feeling this.' He's like, 'OK, dude, I'm on my 11th.' He hands me a second one, and my wife had to drive me home. So I've been getting a little loose with it. But it's always beer — I don't really drink any hard stuff. Nothing against it, I've just always preferred Diet Coke. I wish I liked alcohol. I mean, you can cultivate this. It's easy to do.I've been trying. I had a sip of my friend's old fashioned. I thought it was interesting — sugary, but I liked it. Your song 'The Outside' on this new record talks about the illusory nature of happiness and success.I went into it wanting to write about the things that people go through to turn to God or another power or something to get out of their own heads. I wanted to depict people finding a sense of purpose. 'Hollywood wasn't all that she thought / City of Angels but her wings got caught / She got high enough to think she met God.'You move to L.A. to pursue a dream and you see God after doing a hallucinogenic — that's referencing a friend of mine who's now a Christian buff who did ayahuasca. The other [verse] is about health care — watching my friends who don't have it because it's so expensive. ''It's just stress,' so the doctor says / His young heart's beating out of his chest / Student loans and medical debt.'The Luigi Mangione case happened around the time we wrote that record. Luigi was in your head as you were writing?That second verse is literally about Luigi Mangione. Not to get political, but the things that I feel are necessary in life — you have to pay for it, and it causes people to turn to something like God. The song ends with me being like, 'I talk to my dad in the sky, hoping he talks to me back.' That song means a lot to me. Read more: Why Parker McCollum's new country album might be the best he'll ever make Your music is extremely tidy, which stands in contrast to the singer-songwriter mode of the Zach Bryans —And the Noah Kahans, where they're flat in some parts and it doesn't matter because the emotion's there. Why is your instinct as a musician to go for something neater?Because I don't have the luxury of being able to make what some people view as mistakes. Coming from TikTok to music, I feel like it needs to be neat — it needs to be, 'Oh my God, this guy can do this.' The next album I'm working on, it's more rugged. I'm finding different parts of my voice. I've been listening to a lot of older music too, which has been really good. Such as?Hall & Oates — dude, 'Rich Girl'? Billy Joel too. Is there still a Hype House group chat?I have a group chat with not all of them but the ones that — I'm not gonna name-drop them, but the ones getting popular with music. It was formative years in my life — my college experience, I guess. We're able to look back on it and have a moment of, like, 'That sucked, but it was also awesome.' Would people in the house have called that you and Addison Rae would be the ones to break out as musicians?No, I don't think so — especially not me. Maybe Addison — Addison has always been cool. Everyone loved Addison, even in the house, and she's always been so kind. Even to this day, she's a good friend of mine. But no one would have guessed me. I don't think anyone liked me. In the house?Just in general. The Netflix show — a lot of it was fake, but looking at that, I feel like I'm such a better person now. Are you glad that 'Ordinary' happened after the influencer moment in your life — that there's a bit of separation?I started this in 2020, 2021 — I put out my first song then, and I was still an influencer, vlogging, doing all those things. Everyone's like, 'He came out of nowhere,' and I'm like, I've been doing this for five years. But nobody cared until well after your time as an influencer — which might be a good thing, right? I'm not sure the overlap served Lil Huddy. In a weird way, you might've gotten lucky.I think about that often. I made videos with my wife — I never really made videos with the content house — and those videos were successful in their own right. I think a lot of my fans today were watching me at that time, but not for the Hype House. Actually, no, that's not true. It's hard to generalize about the audience for a song this I do is put my head down and promote the records. I'm not paying attention to the scope of things. Of course you're checking the numbers.I'm not understanding the scope besides the numbers. My monthly listeners [on Spotify], someone told me it was 50-something million — that's sick. But I can't contextualize that. If I'm walking down the street, how many people have heard the song and how many people know who I am? I know the song is big, but I'm under the assumption that the record's bigger than I am. That seems so what does that mean? I can compare it to a Lola Young, or is it a Benson Boone? I think that's two separate things right now. Also, I don't know the age demographic. If I walk into a bingo night, are they gonna know who I am? A bingo night?You know what I'm saying. The song is No. 1 on Hot AC — that's adult contemporary. Is it someone's mom? I don't know who's listening to the record. But I write songs about people passing away, and most people — no matter rich, poor, whatever — it's typically gonna be your 40-and-up who are gonna relate to that record. Kids don't necessarily deal with loss the same way. Is it weird to think that a significant portion of your audience is people twice your age?No, that's f—ing rad to me — the older audience is the hardest to grab. I think it's safe to say that most people judge notoriety on whether their mom knows who they are, right? If that's where I start, that's cool. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Karol G, Reneé Rapp, Burna Boy, and All the Songs You Need to Know This Week
Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, everyone is making their early pitch for song of the summer — Karol G with a celebratory reggaeton track, Reneé Rapp with a revved-up pop rock number, and Burna Boy with a Travis-Scott assisted club anthem. Plus, new music from Alex Warren and Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, and Mgk. Karol G, 'Latina Foreva' (YouTube) More from Rolling Stone Miley Cyrus, Lorde, Haim, and All the Songs You Need to Know This Week Karol G Is Back With Powerful Rallying Cry 'Latina Foreva' Rihanna, Kesha, Giveon, and All the Songs You Need to Know This Week Reneé Rapp, 'Leave Me Alone,' (YouTube) Burna Boy feat. Travis Scott, 'TaTaTa' (YouTube) Alex Warren feat. Jelly Roll, 'Bloodline' (YouTube) Lainey Wilson, 'Somewhere Over Laredo' (YouTube) Mgk, 'Cliché' (YouTube) Joe Jonas, 'Honey Blonde' (YouTube) Jon Bellion feat. Luke Combs, 'Why' (YouTube) Alejandro Sanz, Shakira, 'Bésame' (YouTube) Feid, 'Ando XXIL' (YouTube) Alvaro Diaz, 'Paranoia' (YouTube) Julia Michaels, 'Try Your Luck' (YouTube) Stereolab, 'Transmuted Matter' (YouTube) Turnstile, 'Look Out for Me' (YouTube) Wednesday, 'Elderberry Wine' (YouTube) Ink, 'Turquoise Cowboy' (YouTube) Christine and the Queens, Cerrone, 'Catching Feelings' (YouTube) I-dle, 'Good Thing' (YouTube) Trupa Trupa, 'Backwards Water' (YouTube) Remy Bond, 'Moviestar' (YouTube) PabloPablo feat. Macario Martinez, 'Ojos de Ajonjoli' (YouTube) Mau y Ricky, Danny Ocean, Yorghaki, 'Samaná' (YouTube) Isabella Lovestory, 'Gorgeous' (YouTube) Gabito Ballesteros feat. J Balvin, 'La Troka' (YouTube) Nate Smith, 'Dads Don't Die' (YouTube) Mergui, 'Risk It All' (YouTube) Avery Tucker, 'Big Drops' (YouTube) Ariza, 'Dos Almas' (YouTube) Hunx and His Punx, 'Alone In Hollywood On Acid' (YouTube) Sports Team, 'Boys These Days' (YouTube) Cooper Kenward, 'Wheelies' (YouTube) The Lone Bellow, 'That Table' (YouTube) Frances Anderson, 'Telephones and Traffic' (YouTube) Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time