Songwriter Gone A-list
credits include even some of #Jelena's biggest hits
If you were paying attention to last year's Grammys, you may have noticed a name you weren't familiar with nominated in Song of the Year and Best New Artist categories: Julia Michaels. Further research would lead you to find out more about her work, and realise she had only released one album with seven songs on it at the time.
How does someone get the attention and a nomination from all the fancy Grammy people, who doesn't have a bigger brand or a broader catalog?
Turns out her catalog is already massive, it's just not really her who performs most of her songs. So who does? The biggest pop-stars on the planet pretty much. If you have listened to any pop music in the last few years, she may well have penned some of your favourite hits. My first exposure to her was from my songwriter friends who reference having her as an idol to being 'predictable'.
In other words:
Yes, she wrote those songs. She's also written for Shawn Mendes, Ed Sheeran, John Legend, Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, Jason Derulo, Fifth Harmony, she has two tracks on the latest 50 Shades of Grey movie, Maroon 5, Shakira, Zedd, Troye Sivan, Pink, Keith Urban, Nick Jonas – and the list goes on.
Flip through the gallery to see what songs she wrote for which artist!
It's wild, aye?
So her career started writing number one hits for the biggest stars on the planet – and then she started releasing her own work as her own artist, when her name was well established within the industry.
You can tell how respected she is already by how well her debut album Nervous System was received critically (with two Grammy nominations); and commercially she's already at 20 million monthly listens on Spotify, and her touring schedule this year includes opening for Niall Horan and Maroon 5 and Shawn Mendes in arenas around Europe and N-America and her own tour starting at 2,000+ capacity theatres around the world.
Not bad for a 25 year old on her debut tour.
And just as we were about to share this article with y'all, did we notice on Twitter that Rolling Stone Magazine has just decided to do a big interview with her – which we of course recommend checking out!
If you want to explore her extensive catalog, you're in luck. Twitter user Paulien has been collecting songs written by Micheals into one playlist for you to browse through – or of course, give it a listen.