I told you about indie rocker Sombr a few months ago.
The 20 year old New Yorker, whose real name is Shane Boose, is the son of Elton John AIDS Foundation event director Andy Boose and his wife, amFAR PR director Bennah Serfaty.
His album, “I Barely Knew Her,” just turned 20 in July. But all of the last year he’s had two enormous pop hits that came out of left field. They are “Undressed,” and “Back to Friends.”
The very catchy records are streaming giants. The former has 400 million streams. The latter is at 658 million.
“Back to Friends” is number 6 on Spotify, the first record on this week’s chart that isn’t from K Pop.
“I Barely Knew Her” will be scrutinized as it launches Thursday night. Obviously, there’s a pent up demand for an album at this point. Boose has toured constantly, putting in the time also on social media building up a following.
But now the question is, Will there be a follow up hit? A more recent single, called “12 to 12,” didn’t go anywhere. The dreamy “Would Have Been You,” did only a little better. It’s not easy building off of early hits, just ask Benson Boone. He flipped all over the place but couldn’t sell the follow up to his hit inaugural album and single.
Sombr’s trademark is kind of a dreamy production in which his falsetto voice is drowned in the sonic equivalent of cotton balls and lace. You’d think he was a little guy from the sound, but he looks like he’s a very tall stringbean with Cat Stevens like rock n roll hair circa 1971.
So here we go. Will he go back to being friends with his fans this week, or will the romance stick?
