It jolted the winter, got here alive within the spring, dominated the summer season and went three-times platinum within the fall. Alex Warren’s bombastic ballad “Ordinary” is, by many measures, a defining music of 2025. It’s additionally an uncommon hit: slower than a conventional music of the summer season, filled with gloss, an ascendent hook and inoffensive, religious-adjacent lyricism.
For these causes, “Ordinary” has fast-tracked the 25-year-old singer/songwriter into mainstream musical fame, coming to a head in November when he earned his first Grammy nomination. The nomination for greatest new artist arrived simply 4 months after the discharge of his debut album, “You’ll Be Alright, Kid.”
“I bawled in my wife’s arms,” he stated of the second he came upon concerning the nomination. For those that did not consider in his music profession, he says, “the biggest justification ever was the nomination.”
Most know Warren for “Ordinary,” however fame will not be new for him. Before the chart-topping hit, Warren made a reputation for himself as a social media prankster within the TikTookay collective “Hype House.” And whereas that previous might sound at odds together with his new public persona, Warren at all times exuded perspicacity, the results of a troubled childhood that separated him from his comedic cohort. His father died of most cancers when he was 9, he says, and his mom of problems because of alcoholism. A interval of homelessness adopted in his teenagers, earlier than the TikTookay fame.
Still, he is remained curious and playful. At The Associated Press headquarters in New York, he chatted with workers and made disarming, self-deprecating feedback. An instance: In preparation to see the singer Shawn Mendes later, he dosed himself in cologne. “I need to smell as good as Shawn Mendes looks,” he joked.
Social media success does not at all times yield a artistic profession — contemplate Warren and the progressive Addison Rae, a fellow greatest new artist nominee, exceptions to the rule — but it surely did prime him for the life he leads now. “Everything that I went through back then definitely allowed me to do this,” he says.
Growing up on-line — and having “different versions” of himself offered on social media — has “definitely allowed me to now be unequivocally myself,” he says.
Warren wrote “Ordinary” a 12 months in the past at a writing camp. He says he knew there was one thing particular concerning the observe — although he and his collaborators have been principally alone in that feeling. “A lot of people were like, ‘Oh it’s a ballad, it’s a love song ballad. That’s not a single, that’s a song on the album. That’s a feature, you should give it to someone else,’” he remembers. But he pushed it on TikTookay, and shortly, it linked.
“The TikToks got it to do 4 million streams in a day, which was crazy,” he stated. Then he carried out it on Netflix’s “Love Is Blind.” He performed it with Ed Sheeran,Jelly Roll, Luke Combs and the Jonas Brothers. It constructed to ubiquity.
The music has linked, he theorizes, not just for its anthemic refrain. There’s a “hopefulness but also urgency” to the music, he says, a sensibility some listeners have likened to Christian music. And whereas it is not worship music, “We drew a lot of inspiration from that,” he says of its composition.
That spirit carries all through his debut album, “You’ll Be Alright, Kid.” Warren returns to the document usually and learns extra about himself with every pay attention. “To me, these songs are just real, and I hope that people listen to this record and learn something about themselves,” he says. “That’s the biggest thing. That was for me. It was me finding out who I was, and who I wanted to be as a husband, as a friend, as a father, and that’s kind of what I got out of it. And I hope someone gets something else out of that, you know?”
But for now, he is having fun with the trip that “Ordinary” and his success has offered.
“How often is someone gonna be in this position?” he asks. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, to take advantage of a cool moment that I’ve had, and I’m hoping that it can continue. And I hope that my songs continue to do well, and I continue to be able to write about the things that go on in my life. And if not, at least I can say I took full advantage of everything.”
And in February, it’s going to take him to the Grammys.
The 68th Grammy Awards will probably be held Feb. 1, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The present will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For extra protection, go to https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.
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