You wouldn’t tell by looking at him Lewis Capaldiwhat this guy wrote and sang fourth most played track on Spotify – “Someone you loved”, which counts 2.7 billion streams on the platform, but also a few more entries.

The 26-year-old musician has all the makings of an anti-star. He wears sweatpants all the time (not to mention a casual shirt), has puffy puffy, unkempt carrot hair, a thick Scottish accent with which he speaks unfiltered whatever comes to mind. For example… his erection is affected by the treatment he’s taking for Tourette’s, which in turn causes him to shake his left shoulder violently when stressed. And before the pandemic, he lived with his parents.

Even if Lewis Capaldi reminds me of that slightly inelegant and unpopular, but funny and likeable classmate that we all had at one time or another, he writes and sings pop hits that not only break counters in diagram, they make it comfortable to fill O2 Arena with their peers who brandish iPhones like lighters and play sold-out concerts in dozens of countries.

From father’s living room to international arenas

He grew up in bath, a small town somewhere between Edinburgh and Glasgow, and he was the fourth child in his family, born… because his father didn’t get a vasectomy, as Capaldi says between the serious and the funny in the documentary “Lewis Capaldi: how I feel now” that we watch on Netflix.

Like many other children with musical problems, at the age of ten he, along with his parents and siblings, took up the guitar as his first audience. It would take a few more years for all of us to know him, since he was introduced to the general public. 2017 with single “Bruises” which was originally released independently but was so successful that Lewis Capaldi later included it on his first album. “Divinely uninspired to a hellish degree” (what title), now signed with Virgin.

The track, a stripped-down pop ballad with a “big” chorus and over-stubbornness as a messenger of “dalka”, has become one of the “benchmarks” in Capaldi’s repertoire, which the audience sings aloud at each of his concerts. Certainly not to the extent that he does so with “Someone you loved” the song that took Lewis Capaldi from an up-and-coming Scottish musician to an international pop star.

Something he didn’t seem to believe in either. At some point in the aforementioned documentary, Capaldi USA during the making of his second album as a dynamic name in the music industry. He doesn’t seem to be able to “learn” it, as he himself comments, the whole setting seems fake, he is like a child who is traveling from the countryside to the city for the first time. And, as he says with sufficient humility, music is the only way to find it in the US.

2023 finds Louis Capaldi called upon to win the second “difficult” record bet. “Broken by the desire to be sent from heaven” which came out a few days ago, was written during the “heavy” phase of the pandemic, which did not affect the musician’s work in any way, as he arrived in the studio with more than 50 track sketches before eventually getting 12 from the album.

If we saw a musical correspondence behind the “reconciliation” of the scene of hell on the cover of his debut with the scene of heaven on his new album, we would say that Capaldi’s new work has an even more universal and radio orientation, the tracks become even clearer and easier to digest. Here we have songs that are now fully aware of their purpose: they all want to be the new “Someone you loved.”

Through these efforts, the end result too polished to such an extent that at times it seems almost lifeless. In others, of course, Capaldi delivers honest pop songs with backgrounds like “Heavenly State of Mind” And “Haven’t you ever been in love before?”, however, failing to ruin the overall feel that the album exudes.

Learn from the best, conquer the world

How, after all, does a kid from Scotland who writes traditional – almost old-fashioned – pop music, manage to be in the forefront? Simply put, it is these qualities that make his music everywhere: his songs are so round and clear, they lack any, even negligible, acrobatics, that in the end they are devoid of function. Melodies are designed to stay in memory, no matter where they come from.

And then, if you look closely at Lewis Capaldi, he looks like him. mosaic of other famous musicians: in his image and straightforward songwriting there is something from Elton John –This is what Sir would look like if he grew up on Instagram and TikTok. His songs could easily enter her catalog Taylor Swift. His presentation, of course, is much like this one. Ed Sheeran – even the way the two stars make their album titles “talk” to each other.

And finally, in general, Lewis Capaldi has something to share with her. Billy Eilish. This is easy to understand by watching “Lewis Capaldi: How I Feel Right Now” and “The World Is a Little Blurry” (Disney+) about pop girl phenomena. Both have their parents by their side, their mother at key moments is the one who comes to make the necessary intervention to calm them down. They write songs in the room of their parents’ house. And each anxiety attack takes the form of a tick, as Tourette syndrome is another element that brings the two stars together and, among other things, helps open the door to inclusion through mental health.

What remains is the approach of immediacy, the one on which the star of huge stadiums is built, as well as the neighboring one. Maybe that’s what pop music needs today.

Lewis Capaldi’s “Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent” is released by Vertigo/Universal/Capitol. The musician will perform live in Athens and Terra Vibe on September 16th.