Mabel has told Music Week that 2019 has been “the year of Don’t Call Me Up”.
In our bumper Christmas special, out now, Mabel is named Breakthrough Artist Of The Year, in recognition of a phenomenal 12 months that has seen the 23-year-old Londoner explode across the world.
Mabel is already a two-time Music Week cover star, featuring in our new music special in 2018 and again in June this year as her debut album was released.
Don’t Call Me Up came out via Polydor back in January, and set the singer off to a frantic start. It peaked at No.3 in the UK and now has 1,050,767 sales to its name, according to the Official Charts Company. The track has 441,223,409 Spotify streams. The video has 165,574,800 views on YouTube.
“It’s my biggest song, I’m just blown away by the response it’s had,” said Mabel, speaking alongside her manager Radha Medar and Polydor co-president Tom March in our new issue.
Mabel said the song’s momentum fundamentally changed her as both an artist and a person.
“It’s made me a better artist and performer, I had to do bigger shows than ever before, we did the EMAs, which was an incredible experience,” said Mabel, who’s always dreamed of such performances.
It’s made me a better artist and performer
Mabel
“I wrote it last summer and I was in a place where I really needed to write that song. I was heartbroken about a situation and in the song I sound very sassy, but at the time I wanted the person to call me, but I was telling myself the person I needed to be,” she added. “People listening to it and relating, having that same conversation with friends and giving each other support made me a stronger person.”
Also in 2019, Mabel released her debut LP High Expectations, which also peaked at No.3 and has 67,821 sales to date. The single Mad Love, released in June, hit No.8 and has 526,331 sales.
Mabel said that the performance at the MTV EMAs in Seville was her “favourite day of the year”.
“I can't even put it into words. It was just a magical moment. Growing up I was so obsessed with MTV, music videos and glossy pop performances, that’s always been my dream,” she explained.
The singer, who will release new music early in 2020, revealed that the EMAs gig saw her “push myself and the whole team further than ever before”.
“We all had a little cry because I used to have incredible stage fright. Performing was my least favourite part of what I do. And now it's one of my favourite things,” she said. “That came from getting up there and doing it, but it's frightening. You do just have to put yourself in those situations. I’d never done anything like it, but now I have, so let’s do it again, bigger and better.”
Radha Medar – who was named Businesswoman Of The Year at the 2019 Music Week Women In Music Awards – manages Mabel through Metallic Inc and told Music Week that Don’t Call Me Up “took things up a level” for her artist.
“It started to move really quickly and that just solidified what she'd been building on previously. It was the song that really broke her out into the UK and internationally,” said Medar. “This year really stood out, Mabel does a meet and greet every time she steps out of a house. People in the smallest parts of England know who she is now. I definitely noticed a difference this year.”
Read the full interview in the new issue of Music Week, out now. Subscribers can read it online here. To subscribe and never miss a music biz story, click here.
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