Jess Glynne (2024)

One Liner:  Strong, soulful voiced Brit singer over dance beats

Wikipedia Genre:  Pop, R&B, dance, soul

Home: Hampstead, London, England

Poster Position: 7
Both Weekends.
Sunday at 5:25.

Miller Lite Stage.

Thoughts:  Last here in 2016.  Reminds me of Amber Mark, who was here twice since then.

When listening to this music, I see in my mind hot women dancing out on a crowded dance floor, whipping their hair back and forth, and scanning the room with their eyes to make sure they are being noticed by everyone in the crowd.  She's got a great voice, but the music behind her is pretty plain jane dance electro with some disco influence.  Her biggest song on Spotify (over a billion streams) is just her singing a hook in a song by something called Rudimental that also features Macklemore.

Her original big hit, with 459 million streams, is "Hold My Hand," and will show you exactly what I am talking about.

Happy, sunshine-y track.  Catchy thing, although it sounds like a million other tracks that have used that (or a very similar) piano riff of a bouncing chord beat.  I'm not sure what the video is all about with the weird sand-spitting ATV crowd cranked up all around her? Anyway, it is a fun track.  And I happened to hear it while sitting in a bar in Boston one time, which made me feel super cool for being able to identify her and the fact that she is coming to ACL this year.  It's the little things, folks.  But that track is on the 2015 debut album I Cry When I Laugh.  In the weird way of musicians sometimes now, there is also a song on her debut album which is credited as being by Clean Bandit and featuring Jess Glynne.  And yet, it is on her album?  That is weird.  But that track has 1.3 billion streams, so maybe we should check it out too.  "Rather Be."

Oh yeah, I've heard that song before.  Or at least a remix of it?  How weird that it only features her and yet is on her album.  That is weird.  But again, crazy powerful voice belting out a fun vocal over the top of a relatively simple beat.  Until the chorus, when this one soars like something special.

Her original name was Jessica Hannah Goldstein, but her grandfather changed the last name to Glynne years ago.  She had tried out for the TV show X Factor when she was 15, but dropped out of the process early on.  Years later she appeared on the show as a judge.  She ended up winning a Grammy for Best Dance Recording for that Clean Bandit track.  At one point, Glynne became the first British female solo artists to have seven number one singles on the UK singles chart.  She was a Forbes "Most Influential People Under 30" winner in 2019.  

She's also got several versions of her song "Kill the Lights," which was apparently used on the HBO show Vinyl and released as a 2016 single.  Never saw the show, saw it was cancelled before a second season, so I think I'll leave it alone.  Anyway, here is that disco-fied track, 86 million streams.

More good times are balled up inside of that track, and as with her other tunes, her voice is weapons-grade awesome.  

Here second album was 2018's Always In Between, and is honestly more of the same.  The big one on there was "I'll Be There" with 477.8 million streams.

Amazing vocals, mediocre and unmemorable beat popping along in the background.  She has some of that vibrato going heavy in her voice that is calling out Miley comparisons in that one when she keeps her voice down low.  Loads of singles in the intervening years here, before she gets to the 2024 album JESS.  No heavy streaming traffic yet on any of these songs, but "Silly Me" is winning for now with 6.1 million streams.

You can barely tell it is her voice on the start of that.  She definitely turned down a lot of the fireworks on there - she can still cruise on the beat, but she seems to take it easy on us.  Other tracks on that album definitely crank the voice back up.

However, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that listening to her whole first album (2015's I Cry When I Laugh) a few times was a little tiresome - catchy beats and piano riffs for days.  This isn't the type of music I'd choose to listen to on a normal basis (I'm comparing it mentally to Rihanna - dance music that is well sung), so it doesn't change my generalized opinion about that music now.  That being said, I bet people will have a fun ass dance party at her show.  I doubt I'll be part of it, but I can see it happening.