Passion Blog – Lewis Capaldi

For this week’s blog post, I’m continuing to diversify my music style of passion blogs by picking an artist from a different genre each week.  This week, I chose to talk about one of my favorite voices in all of music, and you may not have even heard of him.  Lewis Capaldi is a Scottish singer and songwriter that has only recently become popular across the world.  He’s only 24 years old and he has his best musical years ahead of him.

Lewis Capaldi was born in Glasgow, Scotland and lived there until he was 4.  He learned to play the guitar and the drums at age 2 and started singing in Scottish pubs by the time he was 9 years old.  He officially began his musical career when he turned 17.  Capaldi’s heavy Scottish accent is prevalent in his interviews and funny Instagram stories, but his accent disappears entirely when he sings.  His roaring ballads and belting of instant classic sad songs have garnered global recognition in recent years.

In 2017, Capaldi was named as one of Vevo’s “Artists to Watch” for 2018.  He was included as one of the lower artists in big name music festivals across the United States like Chicago’s Lollapalooza and Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Festival.  He gained some recognition at these American events, and he opened 2019 with his biggest hit to date.  “Someone You Loved” spent 7 weeks at the top of the United Kingdom Billboard charts.  This piano ballad was nominated for Song of the Year at the 62nd Grammy Awards.  Not only did this song top the UK charts for 7 weeks, Someone You Loved was also the #1 song on the United States Billboard top 100 singles. The song made the top charts of 29 countries upon its 2019 release.

Continuing on with his momentum from an earth-shattering single release, Lewis Capaldi made history.  In early 2020, he became the first artist to ever sell out a stadium tour before ever releasing an album.  The shows sold out within one second of releasing tickets.  He also toured with Ed Sheeran in recent times before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.  Capaldi’s first album, “Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent” passed 1 million sales in September of 2021, only a few months ago.  On this first album, I have several favorites.  The entire album has a theme of sad, powerful ballads accompanied by mixes of soft piano music and beautiful guitar playing.  Arguably Capaldi’s second most famous song “Before You Go” was written about Capaldi’s experience in dealing with suicide, specifically the story of his aunt committing suicide when he was only 5 years old.  Other favorites from the album include “Grace”, “Bruises”, and “Hollywood”.

Lewis Capaldi’s powerful voice and excellent storytelling technique through song is what makes him stand out as an artist of the present and the future.  I don’t listen to sad music too often, but sometimes it is the best thing to hear depending on the mood.  No artist in the current times is better at producing heart wrenching sad songs like Lewis Capaldi.  I’m excited to see what his next album brings.