When we first heard No Roots by Alice Merton we contemplated, completely reasonably I might add, "when you come across a debut from an artist that is so good that you worry how she's ever going to follow it up". I wasn't actually the one who wrote that, but our US-based CEO, but I remember sharing the sentiment at the time.

But she had my attention. For those who don't know, her No Roots single references her upbringing as a daughter in a cosmopolitan family, so she's lived in over a dozen countries, but her home market and origin is German. And so when No Roots exploded, all my German-music contacts were like "no, she's the real deal".

The next thing I noticed about Alice Merton, was when we all went to her live show in London. I observed first hand her almost Taylor-Swift-esque stage presence. What I mean by that, is she's a storyteller. Even in a crowded room, she speaks in her normal voice, so you feel like the setting is more intimate than it is.

She kept sharing these narratives and personal stories between every song, and then proceeded to perform songs of her own writing that were so inviting and confessional and relatable. And the whole crowd got that, because she'd already given us the context for us to really get her place and perspective, and therefore the ability to participate in her story.

The final thing about Alice Merton that got me, more than once, is when I keep thinking her song Jealousy was actually Florence and the Machine. I'll explain how this happened.

At any one point, I tend to add any music I want to check out, or someone sends me, on a single playlist that I then shuffle through to find what stands out to me. When I was putting together my most recent one, I put her entire catalogue on there without much thought.

So Swiftian charm and Welchian sound – what could go wrong?

A lot of things apparently.