Weekend Diversion: John Newman

A lot of the pop music I share is stuff I run across accidentally. That can be true when I’m already familiar with an artist, like last week, or it can be someone new to me, like the week before. I like when either one happens, but maybe just a little bit more when they're new to me. This is one of those weeks.

The video above is “Love Me Again”, a 2013 song by John Newman, an English singer, songwriter and producer. The song went to Number One in the UK, Number 4 in Australia, Number 9 in New Zealand, and Number 30 on the USA’s Billboard Hot 100. It was certified Gold in New Zealand, Platinum in the UK and the USA, and two times Platinum in Australia.

Despite its success, I don’t remember hearing the song until I started watching our free-to-air music video channel which plays the video above rather a lot. I liked the song well-enough—it’s quite catchy—though the ending of the video was rather, um, abrupt. When the video popped up again recently, I decided to find out a little more about the singer.

In addition to his own hit, Newman co-wrote Rudimental’s 2012 single “Feel the Love” (below), which peaked at Number One on the UK charts (2x Platinum), Number 3 in Australia (3x Platinum), and Number 4 in New Zealand (Platinum).



In 2014, Newman was featured on Scottish DJ and producer Calvin Harris’ single, “Blame” (video below, in which Newman appears), which debuted at Number One on the UK charts (Platinum), Number 9 in New Zealand (Gold), Number 9 in Australia (Platinum), and Number 19 on Billboard’s Hot 100 (2x Platinum).



All of that, it turns out, was stuff I was unfamiliar with, and the second two were connected to the first song I was unfamiliar with. Which shows that we won’t always know about pop music just because it’s popular or successful.

As as so often happens, I found out about all this it all because I watched that video channel and became curious about an artist. That sort of thing happens all the time about any number of topics, not just pop music. I think that’s a very good thing.