Arlo Parks

One Liner: British indie pop singer with a lovely voice and smooth delivery

Wikipedia Genre: indie pop, indie folk, R&B
Home: London

Poster Position: 9
Both Weekends.  Friday.

Thoughts:  Her stage name is really simple, but her real name is quite a mouthful: Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho.  I didn't figure this was going to be up my alley at first, but an afternoon of listening to her tunes has put me into a good mood.  Kind of an indie pop R&B mode of stuff, obviously British, that is just danceable and bouncy enough to keep me satisfied all day.

She is openly bisexual and says she listened to too much emo music in secondary school.  her folks were Nigerian and Chadian-French, which is a neato combination to type up.  Like everyone else she was just about to go out on tour and get big and famous, with an opening slot lined up with Paramore's Hayley Williams, before the pandemic locked her back at home.  She apparently took part of her stage name from the fact that a friend saw she was stressed, while in a park, and told her to chill because they were in a park.  Also, during the pandemic, she left home (Hammersmith) to head to London and a rented AirBnb to work on her debut, where she says she would listen to Pink Floyd and Minnie Riperton and make "weird little pasta dishes." 

Her initial album was 2021's Collapsed In Sunbeams, which won immediate critical acclaim with BRIT award nominations for Album of the Year, Best New Artist, and Best British Female Solo Artist.  She won the 2021 Mercury Prize for Best Album.  Prior to that album, she had released an EP in 2018 called Super Sad Generation.  The top track from that four song EP was "Cola," with 30.1 million streams.

I love the organic sound of that band - a little bit like a jazz band under her vampy-sounding vocals.  Her voice is really pretty - the harmonies are spot on.  I also think that "Hurt" has a really pretty sound.  The other big streamer is from the new album, "Eugene" has 46.7 million streams.

The start of the song sounds like late-stage Radiohead - that synth and bass line very much sounds like it would have been at home on that King of Limbs album.  But, once again, her voice just jams - it's like soft and polite but also strong and sure.  Not sure how that works, but its wonderful to behold.  Killer tune lyrically as well, with the crazy angle of relationship jealousy.

I don't know why this one hits so right with me - most of the time I'd dismiss something like this as sounding like Billie Eilish whispering sad lyrics in her bedroom, but I think this just sounds more real and organic rather than manufactured to grab a trend.  I'd go check her out.