Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
America’s Got Talent is yet to produce a successful pop star (unless you count Kehlani, who was in the finals in a group) but that’s not enough to convince me Grace VanderWaal doesn’t have a bright future ahead. Her audition from last week is my current obsession. These shows have had plenty of talented young singers, but 12-year-old Grace is nothing like the rest. She may be no less precocious than the typical stage school kid, but her songwriting and vocal skills are incredibly promising and she performs in a style which is unlike any other artist her age. She’s like a young, poppy Regina Spektor, or the pop star equivalent of Tavi Gevinson. The Taylor Swift comparison is also, for once, quite accurate. AGT isn’t the ideal platform to launch an artist of this style, and I doubt it will make her an instant star, but I believe if she gets a record deal out of it and the chance to develop over a few years with a supportive, expert team (like Zara Larsson after she won Sweden’s Got Talent), she has huge potential.