Laufey on How She’s Drawing a Gen Z Audience for Her Updated Take on Traditional Jazz-Pop: ‘I Became the Singer That I Wanted to Look Up To’
10.12.2023 - 04:15
/ variety.com
Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Laufey (pronounced Lay-vay) is captivating Gen Z by writing and singing music that almost sounds like it could be from Gen WWII. Go figure, and go marvel. But the 24-year-old has always instinctively known that a box is no place to be: She hails from Iceland, is of Asian heritage, and is in many ways a quintessentially all-American girl.
If the original music she performs sounds like an update on the standards of the ‘40s or ‘50s, her lyrics place her squarely in the same present day as the young fans who scream her lyrics back at her at sold-out concerts, as if they were attending the Eras Tour. Laufey’s sophomore release, “Bewitched,” came out in September through AWAL, picking up the biggest first-week numbers for what was classified as a jazz album since Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga released their final joint studio album two years earlier. It’s gone on to earn her a Grammy nomination for best traditional pop album.
But to really understand the hysteria for Laufey among her growing fan base, you’ll have to attend one of her concerts and hear the Lay-vay! chants. Good luck with that, though. The tour she did this year was an instant sellout, and for the four shows she recently did in the L.A.
area, resale tickets were nearly impossible to come by for under $500. This past week, she put on sale a 2024 tour that will take her to bigger venues, and those dates, too, immediately put up “sold out” notices. Only one show officially marked down for her ’24 itinerary hasn’t sold out yet, and that’s because it’s an L.A.
show at a TBD venue on Aug. 7, not going on sale till early next year. Could it be the Hollywood Bowl? She’s already done one show with the LA Phil, and
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