RCA UK, Sony Music Publishing and Myles Smith's management have opened up on the singer-songwriter's remarkable story so far.
Smith, who will pick up the Rising Star award at this weekend's BRITs, where he is nominated in several categories, has gone global without even putting out his debut album, courtesy of hits such as 2023 folk-pop anthem Solo (260,085 sales, OCC), current single Nice To Meet You (240,911 sales) and his 2024 UK No.4 smash Stargazing (1,147.392 sales).
Music Week's latest cover star, the 26-year-old signed to RCA UK in 2023 and has garnered more than 1.6 billion streams to date, with Stargazing closing in on 700m plays on Spotify alone. The second single from Smith's second EP A Minute..., the track amassed 109,000 pre-saves before its release.
“It was something wild that we haven’t seen,” said the Sony label's co-president Stacey Tang. “But it was also the content that he was putting up. He wasn’t a well-known artist but there were tens of millions of views on what he had put up, so you were like, ‘People love it so much, this is the only place they can get it, they’re creating a swell around him.’”
In an era when global breakthroughs have been hard to come by for British artists, Smith's success is a positive sign for the UK business as a whole.
“There’s been various challenges in artist development generally for British music,” said fellow RCA UK co-president Glyn Aikins. “To see that there’s still an appetite for British music has got to be encouraging for everyone, absolutely.”
In all the metrics that you would generally count, mainland Europe and Australia were further ahead than us in Airplay charts for a long time
Stacey Tang
For Tang, Smith served as a reminder of why she chose a career in the record industry in the first place.
“If you’re a music fan and you like people, there’s no better vocation for you,” she said. “And to do it with somebody who’s as ambitious and talented as Myles is awesome. He’s been pretty open in the press that he didn’t think he’d sign to a label, but then he saw the human beings who ran it and who were behind it and he loves his team.
“Props to Glyn. I’ve never seen anyone galvanise a global response so fast. We had everybody doing calls with Myles, because he’s a global proposition. I think Glyn’s ability to do that and Sony’s response to doing that was, in part, one of the things that impressed Myles."
Glyn Aikins, Sony Music UK CEO & chairman Jason Iley, Myles Smith and Stacey Tang
Aikins and Tang quickly recognised the strength of the artist proposition.
“When we were trying to sign Myles, we did it as a wide effort to have all these people dialled in to be rolling out the campaign globally,” explained Aikins. “That’s part of the explanation for why it’s had such widespread coverage all over the world.”
Smith’s manager Eric Parker, a former lawyer based in Nashville, noted Smith's international appeal was also instantly evident.
“From the first jump, it was global," he recalled. "We saw a reaction with Solo in South Africa and we said, ‘We have to get down there.’ We poured into them and seeing them pour back into us made us realise it is about going to where the fans are and not trying to control who the fans are or what a fan is. The touring strategy has been, ‘Get to the fans.’”
By being himself, authentic and honest, Myles doesn’t hide his feelings, emotions or experiences in life
David Ventura
Smith has 21 million monthly listeners on Spotify, as well as 1.6m followers on TikTok and 1.4m on Instagram.
"He engenders a community, like all the engaged fans he has on socials, but also in the bond that seems seamless between management and label,” added Tang, who revealed the UK was relatively slow to catch on.
“In all the metrics that you would generally count, mainland Europe and Australia were further ahead than us in Airplay charts for a long time," she said. "We caught up, but Myles also toured for eight months of last year, so he’s touring, the radio is moving and it’s only now really that we’ve started promo."
Smith, who was also named BBC Introducing Artist Of The Year, signed with Sony Music Publishing last September.
“By being himself, authentic and honest, Myles doesn’t hide his feelings, emotions or experiences in life,” said the publisher's president & co-MD, UK and SVP, international David Ventura. “I hope his example incentivises and inspires the UK artist and songwriting community, as music from the UK is once again being embraced everywhere."
Parker agreed that the Luton hitmaker's authenticity was a key part of the package.
“Authenticity wins the day,” he said. “You can’t really manufacture a real connection because people are so good at being able to sniff out whether something is meant to be marketed to them or whether it’s someone actually reaching out with a real connection.
"Myles is proof that when you focus on great songs and building a real community, not just trying to go viral but having a long-term strategy in what you’re doing online, then you can have a career and not just a viral moment."
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