Lauren Aquilina - Isn't It Strange? (2016)

Bristol-born singer/songwriter Lauren Aquilina began her musical career at the tender age of 13 when she began uploading home recordings to her YouTube channel, where she built-up a formidable fan base of admirers. Her influences were wide and varied, from the pumping house music of her younger years, to the rotation of Coldplay and Stereophonics on the family car stereo, which eventually inspired her to write her own songs from a young age. As Aquilina grew, her tastes matured, with the likes of Bon Iver, Annie Lennox, and Ellie Goulding audible in her music. In 2012, she released her first EP, Fools, during her final year of school and went on to perform shows across the U.K. Her meteoric rise to fame continued -- in a journey not too dissimilar to internet sensation Gabrielle Aplin -- as she surpassed two-million YouTube views of piano-led covers of pop songs by artists such as Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, and Ed Sheeran, and she released the video for lead single "Fools." Praise came from many different outlets -- noticeably from Take That star Gary Barlow -- and eventually she received airplay on BBC Radio 1. In 2013, her second EP, Sinners, arrived and the title track spawned a U.K. charting single. After the Ocean EP in 2015, Aquilina retreated to the studio to record her debut full-length album. Isn't It Strange was released in 2016 on Island Records. ~ Scott Kerr