A LEON SAMPLER
The Soulful Singer/Songwriter Knocks Us Out
Sweden’s Top Exports: pickled herring, minimalist furniture design, and pop music. Possibly, not precisely, but it sounds good, right? You know what also sounds good is singer/songwriter Léon. We here at PROVOKR are loving her.
She is the latest pop music warrior in the decades-long Swedish invasion, following the likes of ABBA, Ace of Base, Robyn, The Cardigans, Tove Lo, and Zara Larsson. Raised by a cellist mother and composer/conductor father, Lotta Lindgren was destined to be a musician, but she made herself a pop star and future superstar. Like other Soundcloud discoveries Post Malone and Billie Eilish, she launched onto the scene with the track “Tired of Talking.” In reaction to this song, Katy Perry called Léon one “to watch.” Most definitely, this song’s music video has over 2.3 million views. As an artist, she has 5,784,388 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Her latest album, Apart, is everything. At moments she sounds like Miley and other times Noah Cyrus while some songs rival Lady Gaga in dancy, fierceness. There is a versatility here that is rarely seen in the pop music landscape. DJs are spinning her in clubs, and with some slide guitar, slower songs could find a home on country radio.
Apart was written and recorded entirely in Stockholm because of Covid. Léon credits that consistency and her collaboration with Martin Stilling with making the album what it is (she co-wrote all but two songs with him too).
Track one, Head and Heart on Fire, draws you promising to tell a simple tale of heartbreak, then the sweeping strings of And It Breaks My Heart bring in a killer beat that says, let’s dance, not crawl despite the pain.
Despite all the comparisons made, Leon is a singular talent. We can’t wait to see what she does next.
