Chance Pena

One Liner:  Warbly-voiced guy doing some Lumineers-ish stuff

Wikipedia Genre:  no Wikipedia, but folk, indie

Home: Tyler, Texas (now L.A.)

Poster Position: 14
Weekend One Only.
Friday at 3:30.

T-Mobile Stage.

Thoughts:  My initial thought after about two hours of listening along to his catalog is that he reminds me of that Ben Platt dude who sings broadway-style jazzy stuff.  He's not doing those sort of songs, but his voice has that same sort of quivery affect that is currently bugging me as I listen to him sing a version of "Hallelujah."  Why does everyone have to do a version of "Hallelujah"?  Ah, he was a contestant on The Voice, on Team Adam, and my guess is that Adam Levine forces every contestant to release this as a single.

Huh.  He has no Wikipedia, but the Wikipedia entry for something called Secret Road Music Services notes that he wrote John Legend's "Conversations in the Dark," which was a pretty big hit.  He is originally from Tyler, Texas, learning guitar at eight and playing around town for a while.  He was 15 years old when he appeared on The Voice, which seems really young to dive into that sort of mess.  But I've never watched the show, so maybe everyone on there is a teenager.  According to his label's bio, he likes tacos!  Wow!  So interesting!

His first three items on Spotify are all The Voice cover songs.  "Barton Hollow" is pretty solid, but "Wherever You Will Go" is painful.  His first EP was in 2019 - anxiety & mixed emotions - but nothing on there seems to have hit.  Same with 2020's The Inevitable.  It was his singles in 2023 that appeared to strike a chord finally, and one of those songs is included on his third EP, 2023's Lovers to Strangers.  "In My Room" has 276.9 million streams.

Starts off like a John Mayer tune, and then his vocals come in like what my daughter calls "singing in italics" and the article I read the other day about mid-90's pop rock called singing with marbles in your mouth.  I'm sure this was a TikTok hit.  I read the lyrics (because I can't understand him at all) and they are actually really good.  Poignant and smart song about a lover leaving too soon.

Still no actual album, just those three EPs.  But his singles appear to be doing well anyway, not sure this generation gives a damn about the album anymore!  "i am not who i was" is the other big one, with 181.1 million streams.

Still a bit warbly for my preference, but this one sort of makes me think of the folky stuff that Noah Kahan is doing, which is probably based on what the Lumineers did before them.  Nice little tune.  His newest single - "Black Bird" - also leans into this dang warbly voiced thing.  Unfortunate, because again I think it is lyrically interesting.  Maybe he just needs to get John Legend to sing everything for him.

Probably won't go for this show.