“I attempt to not hearken to pop radio, ever,” Amy Allen proclaims as she scrolls by means of Spotify on her cellphone. The singer-songwriter is recapping her latest listening: She has been on a Vince Gill kick; she all the time has The Cardigans in rotation; she lately found Donna Summer time’s 1974 single “Girl of the Evening”; she’s a fan of indie star Adrianne Lenker of the band Massive Thief. Allen goes for early-morning runs on the boardwalks of Venice Seashore in Los Angeles close to her residence, and whereas she used to soundtrack them with a traditional rock playlist, for the previous six months she has been blasting ABBA’s biggest hits, beginning every morning jogging to “Dancing Queen” and “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).”
Allen has loads of pop radio classics in her queue — however new pop isn’t within the combine. “It’s a really concerted effort I make to not try this, and to attempt to be influenced by issues that I like and never what’s present,” Allen explains, “as a result of what’s present now shouldn’t be going to be present by the point something I write comes out.”
Whether or not she hears at present’s largest hits or not, Allen is now the one doing the influencing relating to the form of present pop. After years of bouncing across the business and absorbing sonic concepts, the 32-year-old from a small city in Maine has discovered her area of interest in studio periods with superstars, braiding her appreciation of dense lyricism and 2000s bubblegum — “I’ve all the time liked a giant pop refrain and I’ve all the time liked intricate storytelling,” she says — into a capability to create hits completely suited to the TikTok period, however more likely to final lengthy past it.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Brief n’ Candy, which spent three weeks atop the Billboard 200 following its August launch, has been Allen’s highest-profile win as a co-writer so far, with three smash singles (“Espresso,” “Style” and Billboard Scorching 100 chart-topper “Please Please Please”) stuffed with idiosyncratic one-liners which have helped increase Carpenter’s ingenious wit and rework her into an area headliner. But Allen’s studio résumé previous that breakthrough — credit on songs by Olivia Rodrigo, Justin Timberlake, Jonas Brothers, Maren Morris, Koe Wetzel and Niall Horan over the previous 18 months alone — underline her standing as a collaborator who helps A-listers in any respect phases of their careers land the best degree of emotional punch and unlock the viral-ready turns of phrase that can rework a tune into not solely a success, however a cultural second.
“She is aware of find out how to articulate emotions in a method that the majority writers would envy,” says Tate McRae, who tapped Allen for almost all of her 2023 album, Suppose Later, together with its slippery rhythmic-pop hit “Grasping,” which peaked at No. 3 on the Scorching 100. “I really feel extremely fortunate to have written my final album with Amy, and I sincerely stay up for all that’s to return collectively sooner or later.”
Joelle Grace Taylor
Two years after touchdown her first songwriter of the 12 months, non-classical nomination on the Grammy Awards (she was one of many inaugural nominees for the comparatively new honor), Allen looks as if a shoo-in to get a nod for the 2025 ceremony — and doubtlessly turn out to be the primary lady to take residence the prize — because of the whirlwind success of her previous 12 months. But her supervisor, Gabz Landman, factors out that, even when Allen is now hitting vital mass, she was a drive within the songwriting world years earlier than she was nabbing headlines, now six years faraway from co-writing her first Scorching 100 No. 1, Halsey’s “With out Me,” and two years after successful an album of the 12 months Grammy for contributing to Harry Kinds’ Harry’s Home.
“She was an athlete rising up and nonetheless runs marathons, and I believe a giant a part of her writing profession is that this unimaginable stamina,” says Landman, who’s additionally a vp of A&R at Warner Chappell Music. “Amy doesn’t quantify or really feel happy with issues based mostly on chart metrics. She will get contacted by many individuals to collaborate, and it’s all the time about whether or not she’s impressed by [an opportunity] greater than ‘What is that this individual’s standing within the music business?’ ”
That outlook helps clarify why, days after Carpenter’s Brief n’ Candy gave Allen a dozen new Scorching 100 writing credit, she independently launched a self-titled solo album of her personal: a 12-song set stuffed with quiet preparations and understated melodies that sound as far faraway from high 40 as doable. The challenge is the alternative of an iron-hot money seize — Allen says that a few of its songs date again to 6 years in the past, earlier than her songwriting profession took off, they usually have been too significant to depart unreleased.
“One of many explanation why I like Amy is as a result of I actually see the both-ness in her — she’s a songwriter and he or she’s a solo artist,” says Jack Antonoff, one other studio whiz who additionally releases his personal music with Bleachers. After Antonoff and Allen labored on 4 songs collectively for Brief n’ Candy, together with “Please Please Please,” he invited her to open for Bleachers abroad throughout their summer season tour. Allen can even help the band at Madison Sq. Backyard on Oct. 4.
For Allen, her co-writing profession and solo work characterize two separate elements of her creativity and manifest by means of disparate processes. “After I’m writing with and for anyone else, I all the time begin with the refrain — listening again to the good pop songs of the ’60s and ’70s by means of at present, the refrain is the crux of the tune,” she says. “After I’m writing on my own, I all the time begin with the primary verse and I simply inform the story in a by means of line, begin to end. That helps me maintain them separate, and it permits me to nonetheless maintain falling in love with songwriting on a regular basis.”
Joelle Grace Taylor
Allen didn’t know which musical position she wished to play when she was rising up in Windham, Maine: Her first expertise performing was in her older sister’s band, which wanted a bassist and tapped Allen, regardless that she was 9 and had by no means performed the instrument. After kicking across the music scene in close by Portland as a youngster, Allen went to nursing faculty at Boston School (“As a mistake,” she quips) earlier than transferring to Berklee School of Music, regardless of not understanding any concept and even find out how to learn sheet music.
“I used to be actually failing all of my lessons,” Allen remembers, “however I may not less than skate by in among the songwriter lessons. The category that helped me probably the most was truly this poetry class, the place we studied nice lyricists and poets. One thing in my mind clicked about lyric writing, the cadence of rhymes and features — the little issues which may make folks roll their eyes and be like, ‘Oh, that’s so songwriter-y.’ ”
After graduating, Allen fronted the pop-rock group Amy & The Engine, enjoying round New York within the mid-2010s earlier than the band broke up and he or she dedicated to sharpening her abilities as a solo author. In late 2017, Allen was packing up for a West Coast transfer, and in her last New York session, she offered songwriter Micah Premnath with a melodic idea that had been caught in her head — which, after some lyrical workshopping, morphed into “Again to You,” a high 20 hit for Selena Gomez. Quickly after Allen touched down in Los Angeles, she linked with producer-songwriter Louis Bell to assist make “With out Me,” then contributed to Kinds’ “Adore You,” which was his first Pop Airplay chart-topper as a solo artist.
Allen’s transition from fledgling author to hit-maker could have been sudden, however she had been learning the greats for some time. She grew up admiring Carole King, John Prine, Dolly Parton and Tom Petty, whereas additionally analyzing Max Martin’s pristinely crafted hits for Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys. By the point she attended Berklee, Allen had began to establish her favourite studio minds and research their discographies. “I bear in mind listening to my favourite pop songs, and Julia Michaels was behind all of them — it was like, ‘Who is that this chick that’s soundtracking my faculty years?’ ” she remembers with fun. Now Allen and Michaels share credit on 5 Brief n’ Candy tracks and sing background vocals collectively on the tune “Coincidence.” (Allen additionally harmonizes with Carpenter on “Espresso.”)
Amy Allen photographed on August 20, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Joelle Grace Taylor
Like Michaels, Allen has developed a knack for taking easy lyrical phrases and contorting them till they stick in your cerebrum — suppose Carpenter declaring, “That’s that me, espresso,” or McRae exclaiming, “Apparent that you really want me, however/I’d need myself.” Whereas Allen says she would most likely have extra 10-second hooks on the prepared if she paid nearer consideration to TikTok, nearly all of her largest co-written choruses have resulted from precise conversations with artists — frequent floor found, then whittled down into common refrains.
“Manufacturing tendencies flip over and alter each six months, for my part,” she says. “However I believe a fantastic tune, if it’s stripped right down to guitar and piano, melody and lyric — it doesn’t change a ton.”
With Carpenter — whom Allen began working with for her final album, 2022’s Emails I Can’t Ship, contributing additional chunk to tracks like “Vicious” and “Feather” — Allen has discovered a confidante and kindred spirit, unafraid to embrace a double entendre or, within the case of the “Please Please Please” refrain, a well-placed “motherf–ker.” Antonoff says that he, Allen and Carpenter knocked out three songs for Short n’ Candy, together with “Please Please Please,” in a single day collectively at New York’s Electrical Girl Studios, usually taking breaks to double over in laughter. “The depth of the d-ck jokes simply goes on and on,” he says, “after which a tune can occur randomly — that’s the magic of a studio house.”
Brief n’ Candy earned 1.2 million equal album models in simply its first three weeks out, in line with Luminate, with 11 of its 12 tracks reaching the Scorching 100’s high 40. Allen says there are “so many explanation why I really feel like I owe Sabrina my first-born youngster,” however the album’s business success isn’t the most important one.
“Her musicality and character blow me away each time that we work collectively,” she says of Carpenter, “however I’m additionally so grateful to her as a result of I’ve by no means gotten to be a part of each tune on an album earlier than. That’s so in keeping with what I grew up loving — digging in like that.”
Joelle Grace Taylor
Landman notes that one signal of Allen’s progress is her elevated involvement in main pop tasks past a co-write or two: Together with all of Brief n’ Candy, she contributed to 6 songs on Timberlake’s All the pieces I Thought It Was, six on Wetzel’s 9 Lives and eight on McRae’s Suppose Later. Landman chalks that as much as two causes: She picked the best collaborators, and, post-pandemic and post-Zoom periods, in-person studio hangs have let her character shine. “She’s had a fantastic rapport with so many artists which have was friendships,” Landman says. “And I believe that individuals have famous [that] for those who’re successful with anyone, maintain doing what you’re doing.”
Allen is heeding that recommendation as she continues selecting up co-writing tasks and supporting her self-titled solo debut. Releasing an album underneath her personal identify has made her notice that the paths can coexist after beforehand pondering it unattainable. “The final year-and-a-half has made it crystal clear in my mind that I solely stay as soon as, so why do I’ve to choose?” she says.
Allen likens the balancing act to the best way that any songwriter should discover a glad medium between working at a breakneck tempo and accruing sufficient life experiences to have one thing to write down about. Amid a whirlwind skilled 12 months, “by way of taking day without work, I’ve achieved that extra this 12 months than every other 12 months in my life,” Allen says. “And I’ve been writing my favourite songs I’ve ever written.”
This story seems within the Oct. 5, 2024, subject of Billboard.
