Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
You might think that the only artists who have emerged from Spotify are Norwegian tropical house DJs, but Irish singer-songwriter Gavin James is an example of how the platform can bring opportunities to a very different type of artist. Thanks to a strong presence on Spotify playlists he’s built a following across Europe, with almost 10 million plays on his most popular track, The Book of Love. Spotting a success story they could take credit for, Spotify themselves have championed Gavin, choosing him as one of their Spotlight artists for 2016. Now, Gavin has a potential future hit on his hands, though it’s not his latest Radio 1 and 2-playlisted single Bitter Pill. Following the path of Mike Posner, a remix of another track called Nervous (The Ooh Song) is gaining momentum on Spotify, and to me it sounds like his best chance at singles chart success. The word “remix” may fool dance music fans into thinking this is for them, but actually it sounds like Daniel Bedingfield. I can imagine this on Heart, Capital, Kiss, Radio 1 and Radio 2 – it ticks every box for a 2016 radio hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij-dMavrwNo