The performance sees brandishing a yellow telecaster and his band are neatly co-ordinated in white in an image which is so very Beatles, with McKenna looking like Lennon, McCartney and Harrison all rolled into one and the band looking like something off the Abbey Road album cover. McKenna is also seen with a rather extensive pedalboard in front of him which he uses to achieve the exciting sonic experimentation which his latest album has benefitted hugely from. Where ‘What Do You Think About The Car,’ was appealing in its rawness and relative simplicity, ‘Zeros,’ is glamorously decorated with a whole pallet of sounds achieved by effects pedals which take McKenna’s neat guitar playing to the next level.

Declan McKenna has perhaps been more eager to engage with his fans on a direct level than other artists throughout this pandemic duet the raw nature and political content of his music, which is always relevant and always needing to be heard. Another advantage that McKenna may have other some of his competitors is his age. While being left behind in almost every arena throughout, young people have looked with mere bemusement as their elders struggled to get to grips with the tools of the digital age, scrambling onto social media and zoom calls after years of berating the importance of their children’s Skype calls and online communications.

A familiarity with digital technology must have been an unexpected blessing for McKenna and other artists his age who have found it much easier to continue with their music, and interacting meaningfully with fans as well despite the total ban on live music in person. Of course this is no substitute for real life but it must have been amusing for McKenna when the pandemic hit so see artists with many more years and experience in the industry struggling to find a way to continue, for McKenna it was simple, the tools to release music and interact with fans remotely were right there in front of him, and he had the advantage of already knowing how to use them.

The singer opens by saying, “I wanna move people and make people feel uneasy, and question their whole existence with my visuals. I just wanna build worlds where people can live if they’re sick of this one.”  He then begins the series by telling the story of his song ‘Hope For The Underrated Youth’ from EP ‘The Underrated Youth’. The video was filmed on a boat on the river Thames while he played a gig to thousands of fans.

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This is followed by ‘God Save Me But Don’t Drown Me Out’, the first video which Yungblud directed himself, from his album ‘Weird’. He discussed how the idea behind the storyline is to show what anxiety feels like, as he himself and many of his fans have experienced mental health struggles. He said that he feels it’s important to talk about this topic so that other people can receive help and support.

Next, he broke down the title track from ‘Weird’, filmed when the artist was living in LA with his band-mate, as well as ‘Mars’, and ‘Parents’. Speaking of the latter, Yungblud said, “I wanted it to be dangerous as fuck, this video. I remember people being like, ‘It’s a bit close isn’t it?’. I was like, yeah it fuckin’ is, ’cause it has to be.”

This is a new insight into Yungblud’s career and artistry which fans are resonating with, as it takes the viewer through some of his biggest hits. Currently, the video has over 58,000 views after releasing yesterday.

‘It’s quiet in beverly hills,’ is a more laid back performance in contrast to the high energy ‘mars,’ and ‘superdeadfriends,’ which are bristling with punk and brit-pop attitude and in-your-face energy. ‘Its all quiet in beverly hills,’ is reminiscent of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged set with its cello and acoustic guitar arrangement. While Yungblud is much more cheerful than Kurt Cobain even during emotional numbers like this one, where the two are similar is that they were both unapologetically themselves both as people and as performers.

The video’s description describes Yungblud as a ‘young glam rock star,’ and is without a doubt easy to see a young Marc Bolan or David Bowie in this acoustic guitar strumming Brit who shares their taste for makeup, androgyny and alternative sexuality. With Declan McKenna putting a more innocent spin on the era, and Yungblud bringing the energy of punk rock to the scene, there is no doubt that 80s Glam Rock is making a comeback, and it is happening through the Indie Rock scene.

The sense is very real when watching these live videos which have been appearing on Yungblud’s Youtube channel every day since Tuesday this week and only shortly after the official release of ‘Weird!’ that Yungblud would really like to be out gigging the new album to his adoring fans right now, but instead nearly all of us here in the UK are stuck in a situation barely any different from the national lockdown which gave us one of the bleakest Novembers in recent memory, perhaps with the exception that one might now wander into a local record store and pick up a copy of ‘Weird!’ from a real life person.

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According to an article written for the official charts, ‘Weird! is on course for Number 1 on this week’s Official Albums Chart, ahead of Arctic Monkeys’ new live album and global superstar Shawn Mendes’s fourth record. This would be a huge deal for the UK Indie scene which has not seen its share of major album success since the Arctic Monkeys broke through with ‘Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not,’ and it would be a great boost to the North of England who have suffered so hard throughout this crisis to see another of their natives break the big time.

Despite quietly lining up a UK number one album, Yungblud does not seem to be playing by the rules of the music industry establishment at all, and this is beautifully refreshing. He is exceeding liberal with his creativity and content with three live videos dropping in the past three days, right after an album release, this isn’t major label code of conduct, this is something new entirely!

This year has been a great year for singer Ella Mai as she catapulted into the mainstream industry from London to America. “Ella Mai” was released in October 2018 with tracks like ‘Sauce’ and ‘Easy’. The magazine Pitchfork praised ‘Sauce’ as “an undeniable heater” while USA Today also said that ‘Easy’ as “the big diva moment on the album that she deserves”.

Both songs give us a different vibe and flair making us love Ella Mai more.

Ella takes center stage with every live performance executing it amazingly. The song ‘Sauce’ is a very groovy track that definitely people can dance to and has a jazz-influenced sound mixed within giving the saucy feel we all need. Ella also showcases the right outfit for this specific song sporting a fierce red and matching glasses to fit the vibe.

In the song ‘Easy’ Ella looks stunning in her angelic look chosen for this video. This shows Ella’s vocal ability and her soft reassuring voice throughout this song. The song is very relatable as it seems to talk about love which most of her fans/supporters have been through. It also introduces the other voices of background singers which finishes off the song beautifully.

Ella Mai will be kicking off her The Debut Tour in 2019 in support of her album which begins in January. She has also been Grammy nominated for Song of the Year and Best R&B Song ‘Boo’d Up’ for the 61st Grammy Awards which will commence in February.

Get your tickets here before they sell out!

Make sure to watch the videos for ‘Easy’ and ‘Sauce’ down below.

Alex Kisch from Vevo says to the BBC “We see this as a tremendous first step in our collaboration as we look to expose Live Lounge’s phenomenal music catalogue and forthcoming performances to new audiences around the world.”

The Live Lounge is a segment on the British radio station BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra. It exhibits a variety of well-known artists that perform different renditions of their own songs or cover different artists using their own unique style. This quickly became a popular innovative idea to the public as it conveyed many popular songs being performed by artists you wouldn’t expect.

The BBC’s popular radio show has features many of the industries biggest artists and bands such as Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and Disclosure alongside new emerging talent. It reached it’s popularity by the iconic idea of getting artists from certain genres to cover songs that you would never expect them to cover such as Arctic Monkeys covering Drakes well known ‘Hold On We’re Going Home’.

You can already view most Live Lounge performances on Youtube on their official channel, this itself has accumulated 760 million views altogether and 2.7 million subscribers. So why make it view-able on Vevo as well you ask? Well not only will this make all performances visible to everyone internationally but also, BBC Radio 1 has an aim to make sure they attract a vast variety of audiences, the radio is something that is more popular with the older population and since so many younger people spend so much time on phones and tablets, making this content visible on Vevo should make it easier to gain access to these performances therefore attracting audiences of all ages.

Ben Cooper, the boss of BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra states in an interview with Newbeat that the agreement with Vevo is a huge deal for the network.

“Radio 1 and 1Xtra have to have a policy where here is a place you can find us, it’s on the radio. And that’s where we’ve been known for nearly 50 years on Radio 1. But if you also want to find our content in the areas that you love going to, whether that be a Facebook timeline, or whether that be on Twitter then you will bump into us. And you will find us. And if you do like spending lots of time on YouTube, then let’s make sure that we’ve got our content there and you can spend some time with us there. Likewise with Vevo.”

Furthermore, Radio 1 became the first radio station to reach one million subscribers on Youtube last October and as stated previously, this has grown to a massive 2.7 million. With the new collaboration with Vevo, the variety of talent shown on this station will become available to many more worldwide.