Future Stars: Elle King (RCA)

Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.

On first listen, Elle King seems to be an indie singer-songwriter type, but her brilliant debut album Love Stuff shows she’s a true pop artist at heart. After enjoying her new single Ex’s and Oh’s and the witty, feminist video for Good to Be a Man, I took a chance on the album and have been listening to it ever since. I was impressed by Elle’s strong songwriting and raspy yet soulful and unaffected vocals. The sound reminds me of gutsy Swedish artists Miss Li and Amanda Jenssen, with a hint of country. She even has a raucous country-EDM track, my favourite on the album (though it’s not representative of her sound overall), America’s Sweetheart. Her sassy personality and body confidence lyrics remind me of Meghan Trainor. Her profile has been growing slowly since she started playing live in New York as a teenager ten years ago, and her biggest moments have come in the past two years, as she performed on The Today Show, The Late Show with David Letterman and at SXSW. I’m not sure a breakthrough hit is around the corner quite yet for Elle, but most of the tracks on her album are worthy, so I wouldn’t bet against her.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv1gBViFIX4]

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