Whispers of the move first began when the group’s manager Stephen Taverner hinted at the prospect of a shift, confirming it in an interview with Music Business Worldwide in 2022. Taverner was quoted in the interview in the first person, describing Dirty Hit founder Jamie Obourne as “pissed off” by the decision, but said that ultimately Obourne “does understand” and that the band “were signed to him since their early 20s and they want to see what it’s like elsewhere. It’s nothing personal.” Taverner claimed that Columbia CEO Rob Stringer is a “huge fan”, and that Wolf Alice were eager to “experience something different”.

2022 saw a huge series of shows for the group, including global tour dates, supporting Harry Styles on his European tour and electric performances at Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds Festival. Their frontwoman and lead vocalist Ellie Rowsell also appeared alongside Spice Girls star Mel C and musician and actor Self Esteem on the single ‘Call Me A Lioness’, which was recorded for the England Women’s World Cup team and celebrated their historic win at the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022. Since then, the group appear to be flying under the radar, and despite going cold on their social media channels, they still remain at the epicentre of online hype and TikTok edits.

Their last known performance was in September last year at a charity gig at the Sebright Arms in East London in aid of Barnfest, an all-day fundraiser for the children’s cancer charity Flynne’s Barn. The intimate performance included the band’s take on classics like The Pogues’ ‘I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday’, Johnny Flynn’s ‘The Water’, and the American folk song ‘Plastic Jesus’, as well as acoustic versions of their own discography. The four-piece also delivered a haunting cover of Alex G’s ‘Bobby,’ which is featured on the deluxe edition of Blue Weekend. Rumoured to be working on new music, Wolf Alice’s move marks a significant shift for the coming-of-age quartet as they embark on an exciting new chapter with Columbia Records.

Wolf Alice live at Sebright Arms in support of @flynnesbarn [9/9/23] pic.twitter.com/PRQwDYdKbI

— gherkin rowsell (@gherkinrowsell) September 11, 2023

Dirty Hit Limited are the private company behind Dirty Hit, the record label with whom The 1975 have released their entire discography. Healy was appointed director in December 2018 and was active in the role until his termination in April 2023.

Pitchfork were informed that the move was “administrative in nature” though neither The 1975 nor Dirty Hit Limited have commented on the change.

Fans are speculating over the reasoning behind Matty’s termination however, linking his controversial behaviour on social media and on tour to the change in role, though this has not been confirmed by either party involved.

One fan suggested Matty “pretends it’s a choice” following his social media accounts being banned in addition to no longer being a company director, but is ultimately scathing towards his recent actions.

imagine matty’s twitter was actually banned and now his insta is too and he was fired as dirty hit director but he pretends it’s a choice and all “new era of not being a fucking asshole”

— eva (@ratthealy) April 10, 2023

Another fan joked that this is simply due to tax reasons, owed to the timing of Matty’s termination.  

Matty ‘resigning’ from dirty hit at the end of the tax year? He’s just tryna commit tax evasion guys — niche internet micro celebrity land_sam02 (@land_sam02) April 6, 2023

The link between The 1975 and Dirty Hit runs deep, leaving fans questioning what this means for the band moving forwards. Matty has collaborated with multiple artists also signed to Dirty Hit, including No Rome, Beabadoobee and the Japanese House, in essence making Matty the face of the label.

Matty literally is Dirty Hit so like…I’m intrigued

— Emily (@Emily__483) April 6, 2023

Healy is no stranger to being at the centre of controversial news, recently facing backlash for his comments on women as a guest on The Adam Friedland Show, in addition to judging Harry Styles for his “queerbaiting” behaviour and mocking Scottish English.

This followed a string of questionable behaviour during The 1975’s At Their Very Best tour, which saw Matty doing everything from eating raw meat on stage to pulling fans up on stage to kiss them.

so matty healy just french kissed me pic.twitter.com/2v06jUZPBS — giulia (@dntyoumind) January 8, 2023

Matty’s behaviour has been questioned by fans and news outlets alike, ultimately leaving them questioning whether this truly is performance art or whether this show of personality is reason enough for his directorship to be terminated in the interest of PR.

The 1975 are set to play multiple festivals across the UK, with tickets available to purchase here.

07/06/2023 – St. Anne’s Park – Dublin

11/06/2023 – Parklife Festival – Manchester

02/07/2023 – Finsbury Park – London

09/07/2023 – TRNSMT Festival – Glasgow

Stream The 1975’s latest album, Being Funny In a Foreign Language, here.

.@charli_xcx had the best reponse to the Brits’ failure to nominate any women for best artist. pic.twitter.com/zCkHN2FP50

— Mark Savage (@mrdiscopop) February 12, 2023

Charli has now made waves with her decision to part with Atlantic Records, whom she signed a five album deal with at just 16 years old. The details of her new record deal have not yet been revealed, but Charli did tease fans with a glimpse of her “brand new recording contract” in her ‘In the Bag’ video for British Vogue.

Charli reveals that she has signed a two album deal, stating in the video “We’re in business!” Rumours subsequently began to circulate that she had signed with Dirty Hit, an independent label home to No Rome, Pale Waves and Charli’s boyfriend George Daniel’s band, The 1975.

Charli has previously worked with numerous artists signed with Dirty Hit, most recently teaming up with George Daniel to remix Caroline Polachek’s new single, ‘Welcome To My Island’, so it wasn’t surprising that fans thought she may have signed with Dirty Hit herself.

However, she quickly put these rumours to rest, replying to a fan on Twitter saying “i’m too expensive for them.”

i’m too expensive for them https://t.co/1ZXWeqERfJ

— Charli (@charli_xcx) February 22, 2023

Speaking to NME in October 2022, Charli revealed that she wasn’t sure about becoming an independent artist, saying, “I like not having to foot the bill for everything at the beginning, that’s quite scary. Especially when you want to do things on the kind of scale that I did on the last record. I’m still exploring, definitely.”

She concluded that, “there’s so many interesting options that would work for me.”

Charli’s latest album CRASH released in March 2022 debuted at No.1 on the UK Albums Chart, becoming her first album to top the chart. CRASH also became her highest charting album in the US to date, debuting at No.7 on the Billboard 200.

Following this success, Charli expressed her confusion surrounding the lack of recognition for female artists at the Brits, tweeting “i only came to speak the truth hunny.’

i only came to speak the truth hunny: https://t.co/vJj5hYrPYS — Charli (@charli_xcx) February 12, 2023

Despite her lack of nomination for Best Artist, Charli was later seen wearing a very on-brand tongue in cheek outfit, with a slogan t-shirt reading ‘REAL WINNER.’

REAL WINNER pic.twitter.com/GKuWS9m3UV

— CHARLI XCX UPDATES (@FckyeahCharli) February 12, 2023

Fans are eagerly awaiting news on Charli’s plans for 2023, with hints at further collaborations and even a potential book being on the horizon.

Stream Charli XCX’s latest album here.

View this post on Instagram

‘How Was Your Day? – one hour @zanelowe @applemusic

A post shared by beabadoobee (@radvxz) on Sep 28, 2020 at 8:01am PDT

How Was Your Day? is a stripped-back track, typical of Beabadoobee, who is known for her lo-fi bedroom sound. The only instrumentation present is the jangly acoustic guitar which accompanies the singer’s soothing vocals. Beabadoobee said that the song is about ‘all the relationships [she] neglected when [she] was away from home…’.

The song’s words: ‘we haven’t talked in a while// forgotten how you used to smile… and I miss getting angry at you’, poignantly embody this idea. Beabadoobee says she wanted to emphasise the rawness of the lyrics by using simple recording methods and including all ‘the little mistakes and vocal wobbles‘.

The music video, which also came out today, is equally lo-fi in production methods; adding to the overall intimacy of the project. In it, Beabadoobee is joined by her friends and boyfriend. We see naively shot scenes of them messing around in the rehearsal room or holding hands on the grass. The clips have been made to look aged with a retro affect, matching the sentimental tone of the song.

Beabadoobee explains that she ‘wanted the music video to feel nostalgic to [her], to include all the people [she] cared about.’This DIY element has always been present in her music. In 2017, she wrote and recorded Coffee in her bedroom. When she uploaded it to Youtube, she was never expecting the response it received.

After Coffee, which went viral almost overnight, Beabadoobee released an equally mellow cover of The Moon Song. Once she signed to the record label Dirty Hit, home to Wolf Alice and the 1975, she got to work on her first EP Lice (again a simple and stripped back collection of heart-felt songs). Angry Song, on this EP, was a short song and catchy song about teenage angst.

It was this track that hinted at the edgier side of Beabadoobee that would come out over the next couple of years. 2019’s She Plays Bass saw her switch in the acoustic guitar for electric, and had a faced paced drum section too. 2020’s Care felt a bit like early Christina Aguilera – with a strong percussive element and girl power lyrics. Her new track is a return to her more mellow stuff, so it will be interesting to see what Beabadoobee’s upcoming album will sound like as a whole.

For the past years, independent record label headed by Jamie Oborne has introduced a horde of exciting new artists to the UK music scene with the likes of The 1975, Wolf Alice, and Pale Waves. This month, the label just welcomed a new member to their home, and he is the 21-year-old music prodigy who goes by his first name Beaux.

Beaux (full name Beaux South) is the latest Gen Z star in the making whose musical style is inspired by fellow artists such as Lorde, Troye Sivan, and the one and only queen of the generation Billie Eilish. His talent and prospect in the industry are proven in the breakout track, “Look How We Started”.

Despite its ridiculous brevity under two minutes, “Look How We Started” sounds brilliant and impressive with the atmospheric beat and lo-fi vocal, a hot trend of all Gen Z stars. “Heard you moved out of the city while back / Kept on having all your panic attacks / Said your parents really wanted you back / Looking back on it, I only feel sad,” Beaux reminisces the days when changes happened—again a songwriting cliche all Gen Zers pursue.

Regarding the upcoming debut EP, Beaux told NME that it would thematically entail loss and fear of failure. “The whole premise of it is: ‘what’s the point even of having any success?’ I feel like you spend a lot of your time going, ‘I want to be successful in whatever I do’ or ‘I want to have a good music career and I want to just do music’, but what’s the point if the people you like are not around to share your success with you.”

He continued, “The EP talks about losing loved ones, too. My father died when I was seven, and I’d just gone through a breakup when I wrote it. So it’s sort of just the idea of what was the point of everything if the people you love aren’t around. It’s quite fun stuff!”

ดูโพสต์นี้บน Instagram

so exciting to finally have music out, you can stream it everywhere and there’s this visualiser up on youtube too, enjoy x

โพสต์ที่แชร์โดย beaux (@beauxsouth) เมื่อ ก.ค. 10, 2020 เวลา 10:10am PDT

The Surrey-born singer also mentioned Rex Orange County and Declan McKenna as the inspirations of his songwriting process. Meanwhile, the EP’s production is influenced by No Rome, The 1975, Tyler, the Creator, and Kanye West.

“Look How We Started” is available now on every streaming service, and follow Beaux’s Instagram to keep in touch with his new music.