MBW Reacts is a collection of analytical commentaries from Music Enterprise Worldwide written in response to main current leisure occasions or information tales. Solely MBW+ subscribers have limitless entry to those articles. The under article initially appeared inside Tim Ingham’s newest MBW+ Evaluation electronic mail, issued solely to MBW+ subscribers.
If Sir Lucian Grainge bought an even bigger festive reward for his daughter-in-law than for his personal son final month, Elliot Grainge would absolutely have understood why.
Grainge Jr. is, after all, head of Atlantic Music Group, over at Common rival Warner.
Throughout Thanksgiving, a video landed on TikTok of Elliot’s spouse, Sofia Richie Grainge, dancing with a good friend to a music she loves: Messy, by UMG/Island’s Lola Younger.
By mid-December, that video, and the Messy dance craze it impressed, had gone berserko-viral. (Richie Grainge’s video has over 30 million performs; a ‘tribute’ TikTok from Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell has an additional 20 million. There are numerous others.)
Now, as we head for the twilight of January, this contagious sprinkle of influencer stardust has helped thrust Lola Younger firmly into the worldwide highlight.
Messy, already a UK No.1, is presently at No.25 on the Billboard Sizzling 100… and rising quick.
Younger’s dazzling efficiency of the music on Jimmy Fallon the opposite night time has catalyzed the second, and her label at Island Data US (on a scorching streak, through the likes of Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan) is urgent the Large Main Document Firm Button. Younger’s agent at WME (Kirk Sommer) is buzzing, too.
Don’t be misled by the Messy dance, nevertheless. It is a slow-cook fairly than microwave story.
Younger’s title was first talked about to me by Louis Bloom, Island’s UK boss, over a lunch six years in the past. Even then, Bloom was satisfied his newest signing might, in time, turn into one thing the UK had lengthy been craving: a brand new British expertise able to gatecrashing the worldwide huge leagues like Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, and Adele as soon as did.
Younger’s co-managers, Nick Huggett and Nick Shymansky, every have a roadmap of the way to navigate this promised land: Huggett signed Adele to XL Recordings 17 years in the past, whereas Shymansky was the long-time supervisor of Amy Winehouse. (Shymansky can also be the nephew of… Sir Lucian Grainge. It’s a household affair, this story!)
What’s essentially the most heartening factor about Lola Younger’s profession explosion?
Talking selfishly (whereas daubing myself in red-white-and-blue), it’s that it nods in the direction of a possible shock development for 2025.
The UK is BACK, child!
Erm, M-UK-GA!
Along with Lola Younger’s ascent, the debut album from British rapper – sure, British rapper – Central Cee seems set to make a mark within the Prime 20 of the Billboard 200 this week.
Elsewhere, Polydor-signed UK act Chrystal is climbing the decrease half of the Billboard Sizzling 100, Myles Smith’s Stargazing has simply surpassed 600 million Spotify streams, and – with ‘Brat Summer season’ within the rearview – Charli XCX is about to have a giant take a look at the Grammys.
In the meantime, Headlock by one other British artist, Imogen Heap, initially launched in 2005, is quietly turning into a 2025 streaming hit. Boosted by TikTok virality and public super-fandom from Ariana Grande, Heap’s monitor is presently registering 1.3 million Spotify streams per day, through an indie label: Nick Raphael and Christian Tattersfield’s NWS. (Raphael signed Heap to Sony 20 years in the past for her debut album, that includes Headlock. The copyright is now owned by the artist, licensed to NWS.)
Okay, Lola Younger apart, that is inexperienced shoots stuff. However for a UK market that’s been written off for years as “struggling within the US market”, is a riposte lastly constructing?
Perhaps. Simply perhaps.
M-UK-GA!
To my eyes and ears, Lola Younger represents one thing much more very important than mere jingoistic verve.
She is the most recent in a contemporary class of blockbuster alt-pop star brimming with originality and, most significantly, character.
You solely want take one look at Younger to know she’s uncommon.
You solely want hear a snippet of Messy (after which uncover it could also be a message to her mother and father) to know she’s flawed, humorous, and filled with battle (“I’m not skinny and I pull a Britney each different week”).
And also you solely want learn the bubbling teen YouTube feedback underneath her Fallon efficiency to know the place that is all headed.
This theme extends into the front-running Grammy nominees this yr (Chappell, Kendrick, Billie, Sabrina, Beyoncé, Charli, Put up and so forth.).
Be trustworthy: you won’t love all of them, however you’d be hard-pressed to argue that any of those individuals are boring.
Whisper it, however the current period of dead-eyed, forgettably good pop stars singing algo-jacked tunes is now… if not fairly absolutely over, then operating out of steam.
And guess what? That is all nice information for the music business’s largest battle in the present day – towards the regurgitative menace of generative AI.
Blowhards at Silicon Valley’s Lightspeed Companions claimed final yr that AI platform Suno – through which Lightspeed led a $125 million funding spherical – would quickly be making “full-length songs worthy of prime 40 radio airplay in mere seconds”.
Speak about lacking the purpose.
In 2025, ‘Prime 40-quality music’ means nothing if the particular person behind it doesn’t drop jaws, crack smiles, or swell hearts.
For a very long time, we on this enterprise have heeded the truth that, in music, it “all begins with a music” – and it most actually does.
However it soars with a character.
On this subject, I’d encourage you to savor each phrase of this quote from the sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson – extensively credited as the person who invented the time period ‘Metaverse’.
In 2023, the Monetary Instances requested Stephenson why he wouldn’t be utilizing ChatGPT to co-write his future novels.
He stated: “My principle is that after we expertise artwork – whether or not it’s a online game or a Da Vinci portray or a film – we’re taking in an enormous variety of micro-decisions that have been made by the artists for explicit causes. In that approach, we’re communing with these artists, and that’s actually necessary.
“One thing generated by AI may appear corresponding to one thing produced by a human, which is why individuals are so excited. However you’re not having that consciousness of communing with the creator.
“Take away that, and it’s hole and uninteresting.”
Hole and uninteresting. Sure certainly.
And never the slightest bit messy.Music Enterprise Worldwide
