Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
Celebrity connections can get you a long way in the music industry, and being the daughter of Dave Stewart undoubtedly helped Kaya Stewart (not to be confused with K Stewart or K-Stew) secure a major label deal. However, it won’t hold much weight with the young pop fans she needs to win over to make her debut single a hit. In Love With a Boy is produced by her dad, and the sparse sound is his attempt to emulate current trends. The single is off to a good start, sitting in the top 20 of the Shazam US new release chart after being playlisted by 85 pop radio stations, a record-breaking number for a new artist. But this success surprises me, as I feel the song is underwhelming and confused, like it doesn’t know whether it wants to be on Soundcloud or YouTube. Kaya’s over-thought styling and awkward performance in the music video do nothing to help. So, are the radio execs seeing something I’m missing? Is there an incentive for them to support Kaya? Does her label believe in her so strongly that the radio stations feel they can’t say no? It’s a mystery, but I’m intrigued to see how this pans out. Kaya recently did a schools tour and is now off on the Warped Tour, hoping the audience of rock fans will embrace her pop songs like they did with Katy Perry and Echosmith.
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