Arlo Parks has made her debut appearance on American television this week with an exclusive performance of ‘Hurt,’ on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Jimmy Kimmel introduces Parks to the show with the announcement that her debut album ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams,’ is now available before the singer gives and intimate and exciting performance filmed in a large studio space decorated with reading lamps and books suspended from the ceiling. The performance of Arlo Parks on Jimmy Kimmel also coincides with her taking the lead spot on Apple Music’s Up Next playlist which compiles new and exciting artists tipped for success in the coming years.
The release of Arlo Parks’ ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams,’ on the 29th of January was a good day for British music, with this and another debut album from a brilliant young artist from the UK, Celeste’s ‘Not Your Muse,’ was a double whammy for fans of both singers who are each equally brilliant in their own right. Arlo Parks’ album is a unique blend of Indie, RnB and Spoken Work and cuts a solitary path across the map of British music, infinitely fresh and revitalising. Tracks like ‘Hurt,’ especially have great radio playability with the catchy hook line and laid back beat. The album also features ‘Caroline,’ which has already become a cult favourite when it was released in 2020 and has been making the rounds on radio and streaming mediums.
Arlo Parks is another rising star on the increasing exciting British music scene which is producing a great many talented women at the moment, from Dua Lipa to Celeste it is certainly a great time to be a British woman in music and it is surely long overdue in an industry which has been almost completely male dominated here for a long time. An appearance on Jimmy Kimmel is surely a good sign and an indication that ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams,’ is bound to break the American market, a mark of success for British artists ever since The Beatles and other British Invasion bands managed it in the 1960s.
Arlo Parks is known for her friendship with Oxford Indie band Glass Animals and supported them for their live-streamed concert in support of their 2020 album ‘Dreamland.’ While releasing an album in 2020 was surely the most challenging experience for any musicians in recent memory, Arlo Parks features a less damning but equally challenging situation in 2021. While the doom and gloom of 2020 was defined by a lack of knowing what the future might hold or when the current situation may begin to change, 2021 does offer hope of a way out, yet the present situation is in fact in many ways more challenging and more deadly than last year.
Arlo Parks, like everyone in the music industry, has a mountain to climb in 2021 to keep the effects of the coronavirus crisis at bay, as we hope that situation gradually begins to draw to a close. While the health emergency may now have a tentative end in sight, the economic crisis which is yet to be truly felt will be hurting for many years, and musicians have a heavy load to carry.
