Alex Warren: From Abnormal to Grammy-Nominated

New York (AP) — It jolted the winter, got here alive within the spring, dominated the summer season and went three-times platinum within the fall. Alex Warren’s bombastic ballad “Abnormal” is, by many measures, a defining music of 2025. It is also an uncommon hit: slower than a conventional music of the summer season, stuffed with gloss, an ascendent hook and inoffensive, religious-adjacent lyricism.

For these causes, “Abnormal” has fast-tracked the 25-year-old singer/songwriter into mainstream musical fame, coming to a head in November when he earned his first Grammy nomination. The nomination for finest new artist arrived simply 4 months after the discharge of his debut album, “You’ll Be Alright, Child.”

“I bawled in my spouse’s arms,” he stated of the second he discovered in regards to the nomination. For individuals who did not imagine in his music profession, he says, “the largest justification ever was the nomination.”

The individual behind the music

Most know Warren for “Abnormal,” however fame is just not new for him. Earlier than the chart-topping hit, Warren made a reputation for himself as a social media prankster within the TikTok collective “Hype Home.” And whereas that previous might sound at odds along with his new public persona, Warren all the time exuded perspicacity, the results of a troubled childhood that separated him from his comedic cohort. His father died of most cancers when he was 9, he says, and his mom of issues because of alcoholism. A interval of homelessness adopted in his teenagers, earlier than the TikTok fame.

Nonetheless, he is remained curious and playful. At The Related Press headquarters in New York, he chatted with employees and made disarming, self-deprecating feedback. An instance: In preparation to see the singer Shawn Mendes later, he dosed himself in cologne. “I have to odor pretty much as good as Shawn Mendes seems,” he joked.

Social media success does not all the time yield a inventive profession — contemplate Warren and the revolutionary Addison Rae, a fellow finest new artist nominee, exceptions to the rule — nevertheless it did prime him for the life he leads now. “Every part that I went by way of again then positively allowed me to do that,” he says.

Rising up on-line — and having “totally different variations” of himself offered on social media — has “positively allowed me to now be unequivocally myself,” he says.

A not so “Abnormal” monitor

Warren wrote “Abnormal” a yr in the past at a writing camp. He says he knew there was one thing particular in regards to the monitor — although he and his collaborators had been largely alone in that feeling. “Lots of people had been like, ‘Oh it’s a ballad, it’s a love music ballad. That’s not a single, that’s a music on the album. That’s a characteristic, it is best to give it to another person,’” he remembers. However he pushed it on TikTok, and shortly, it related.

“The TikToks obtained it to do 4 million streams in a day, which was loopy,” he stated. Then he carried out it on Netflix’s “Love Is Blind.” He performed it with Ed Sheeran,Jelly Roll, Luke Combs and the Jonas Brothers. It constructed to ubiquity.

The music has related, he theorizes, not just for its anthemic refrain. There is a “hopefulness but in addition urgency” to the music, he says, a sensibility some listeners have likened to Christian music. And whereas it is not worship music, “We drew loads of inspiration from that,” he says of its composition.

That spirit carries all through his debut album, “You’ll Be Alright, Child.” Warren returns to the report typically and learns extra about himself with every hear. “To me, these songs are simply actual, and I hope that folks hearken to this report and study one thing about themselves,” he says. “That’s the largest factor. That was for me. It was me discovering out who I used to be, and who I needed to be as a husband, as a pal, as a father, and that’s type of what I obtained out of it. And I hope somebody will get one thing else out of that, you already know?”

However for now, he is having fun with the experience that “Abnormal” and his success has offered.

“How typically is somebody gonna be on this place?” he asks. “This can be a as soon as in a lifetime alternative, to benefit from a cool second that I’ve had, and I’m hoping that it may proceed. And I hope that my songs proceed to do nicely, and I proceed to have the ability to write in regards to the issues that go on in my life. And if not, not less than I can say I took full benefit of every little thing.”

And in February, it’s going to take him to the Grammys.

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The 68th Grammy Awards can be held Feb. 1, 2026, at Crypto.com Enviornment in Los Angeles. The present will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For extra protection, go to https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.