What can I say? The moment I first heard her, I fell in love.
This past summer I was in an out of the way record shop which I had travelled to on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I had particularly nothing to do. It was a fairly nice store, but due to the distance and difficulty getting there, I’ll admit that I haven’t returned since, although I am sure, once the weather gets warm again, I probably will on a day that I’m itching to flip through some vinyl. I know I left the store with some records that day, but I can’t remember what they were. What had a much more profound effect on me was the music that the hip young record store girls were listening to in the store.
The moment the girls put the music on, it stopped me from digging through the heaps of used vinyl immediatly. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful and purest music I had possibly ever heard in my life, and believe me, I’ve heard a lot of music. It was timeless but modern, and I was overcome with all of its charm.
I went up to the counter and asked the girls what they were listening to. “This is Laufey,” one of them told me. I had no idea what she just said.
“Huh?” I asked, feeling very old, very unhip.
“Laufey. It’s Laufey. It’s her new album” the girl said.
“Yeah. She’s coming to the city in a few weeks” her co-worker added.
I still had no idea what name they were saying so I pulled out one of my business cards. “Can you write that down for me” I said, flipping the card over to the blank side.
The girl wrote down the name and handed the card back to me. L-A-U-F-E-Y. I shoved it in my wallet for safe keeping and I asked the pair if they had the album we were listening to for sale, but the girls revealed that they were currently sold out and were streaming it in the store. So, when I got home, I went on-line and ordered every single Laufey album I could find. I ordered the old stuff, the new stuff, and preordered the yet to be released stuff. It’s the first time that I have ever gone in so hard on a first discovery of a new artist, and it was money well spent.
It’s hard to write something new and fresh about Laufey that hasn’t already been said by others in the past year. In many ways her story has only barely begun, and we are only in the first chapter of her tale. She has also been cultivating a massive cult following and while I may have only learnt of her in the last six months, Laufey has been getting a lot of press from all the big entertainment media over the past year, which has possibly said everything that there is to say. So, if you’ve heard her music, you know what I’m talking about. But if her name is as alien to you as it was to me that Saturday afternoon, you are missing out on the best recording artist in the world today. Big words, but I always stand behind what I say.
Personally, I think Laufey has possibly the most enchanting and perfect voice in the history of music. I mean it. When I do a deep listen to Laufey’s music it makes me forget every female vocalist I’ve ever heard before and I have ever loved, and believe me, I love a lot of them. Does this make her the be all and end all? Probably not, but it does make her magical. That’s it. Her music is like a love spell for the soul.
Although much of the world is just starting to fall in love with Laufey, her musical journey has been going on for a while. Born in Iceland to an Icelandic father and Chinese mother, Laufey (whose full name is the mouthful Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir) was born into a life of music. Her mother is a classical violinist, and her grandfather, Lin Yaoji, is a celebrated musician and educator in China. Laufey along with her twin sister Junia, started playing piano and violin at the age of four, and by age eight Laufey had moved to the cello.
Initially Laufey was being trained as a classical musician, but she developed a love for American jazz via her father’s record collection. Specifying Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Julie London and Chet Baker as being her primary influences, Laufey began to connect with the American songbook, giving her an interest beyond the often-rigid training of her classical upbringing, but maintained the elegance and education of her family’s classical roots.
At the age of fifteen, Laufey had begun performing with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra and became a finalist on Iceland’s versions of “Got’s Talent” and “The Voice,” which gave her recognition in her home country. However, she relocated to the US when she won a presidential scholarship to attend the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston.
While studying at Berklee, Laufey wrote her first collection of songs which she released as an EP titled “Typical of Me” in 2021 (the EP received a vinyl release in North America in the summer of 2024), although an advance single, “Street by Street,” became a hit on Icelandic Radio as early as 2020. Laufey began to gain popularity in the UK later that year, where she hosted her own radio show on BBC Radio 3. Continuing to successfully cultivate a strong following via Tik Tok, Laufey finally made her American television debut in January 2022 on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and later that year she released her first full album, “Everything I Know About Love,” which rose to the number one spot on Billboard’s Alternative New Artist chart upon it’s release.
One thing often said about Laufey’s music is that it is so genre bending that it is difficult to confine to one distinct style. Perhaps, but I think it is far more accurate to say that Laufey is taking forms of music that we are already familiar with and playing with them in new ways and pushing the boundaries of traditional subgenres to create something completely new. Laufey successfully blends her classical training with her love for jazz and embraces traditional pop vocals to create something which is both timeless and contemporary. Furthermore, while the music can be described as being flawless, it still sounds completely organic, filled with optimism and personality and untampered with over production or studio computers.
The result is that Laufey has ended up creating a yet to be named new genre of music all her own. It is unfair to compare her to favorite pop stars like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande or Chappelle Roan because, while they may be her contemporaries, she is not performing in that same arena at all. But she’s also not really like popular vocalists of the past either, such as Barbara Streisand, or Karen Carpenter, or Sarah Brightman. Although she does often perform some of the vocal standards from the past, she is doing something completely different with the songs than the women who have come before her. I mean, listen to her flawless cover of “I Give You Love.” It makes you almost forget about Keely Smith, and if you know how much I love Keely Smith, you know that’s saying a heck of a lot!
The result of Laufey’s combination of mixing traditional sounds for a modern audience not only has given her the ability to cross genres but has managed to cross the generational fanbases. She is traditional enough to charm an older audience, fresh enough to connect to the youth market, but good enough to be adored by the musical elitists. Plus, she does it in a way which is exciting, natural and likeable, putting a halt to any potential cynicism from music hipsters looking for a reason to tear down the new kid on the scene. Honestly, Laufey may be the first musician I think deserves to be universally adored. If anybody can find fault with Laufey’s songs, I question if they even like music at all.
And of course, I am not the only person who thinks this about Laufey. While she might not be the biggest name in the entertainment world today, her popularity is continuously growing, and she is getting the recognition and accolades which she greatly deserves. In 2024 her sophomore album, “Bewitched,” won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Vocal Album, and Variety Magazine awarded her the title of “Crossover Artist of the Year,” and she furthered her reach only a few weeks ago when she performed on the annual “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Years” broadcast. Meanwhile, at our house, she topped my 2024 Wrapped List as the artist I streamed the most in 2024, replacing past top artists like Dea Matrona, Bobbie Gentry and Paul Revere and the Raiders. To say the least, I’ve been listening to a lot of Laufey.
But despite my love of Laufey, I foolishly chose not to go to her performance when she played at the Ottawa Jazz Festival this past summer. In what I found to be a hot and uncomfortable summer, I was not enthusiastic about an all-day outdoor concert with general admission seating. However, as I continue to watch Laufey’s star glow brighter, and as I catch performance highlights from her current tour via social media, I have realized that I may have made the wrong choice. Laufey is currently the one performer in the world I want to see in concert the most, and I hope that one day she’ll return my way to I can hear her music live and in person. With a career still on the rise, there is surely more music to come, and I won’t miss my next opportunity to see her. In the meantime, I’ll just keep playing her albums over and over again throughout the new year.
