'Featuring' Sam Smith, John Newman, Ella Eyre: singing their way to success

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/09/sam-smith-john-newman-ella-eyre-success-guesting

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The surest guarantee of a hit, it seems, is to put the word "featuring" somewhere on the credits of your song. Of the 40 biggest-selling singles in the UK last year, more than half featured guest vocalists. And while the likes of will.i.am, Aviici and Calvin Harris continued with their famous-singer-revolving-door policy, what was more notable was that acts such as Disclosure, Naughty Boy and Rudimental helped to shine a light on a new breed of talent – who then launched their own careers off the back of starring roles on other people's records. With Sam Smith (featured vocalist on Naughty Boy's La La La and Disclosure's Latch), Ella Eyre (Rudimental's Waiting All Night and Naughty Boy's Think About It) and MNEK (Rudimental's Spoons and Duke Dumont's Hold On, as well as a co-writing credit on Need U) all appearing on the BBC Sound of 2014 list, and with Smith also picking up the Brits Critics' Choice award (ahead of Eyre), "featured artists" have officially come out of the shadows.

But why now? As anyone with a passing interest in the music industry will know, album sales are dwindling, major labels are merging and the halcyon days of splurging millions on new acts are gone. For any label, pinning your hopes on a singer who is already all over the radio, albeit with a credit as a featured singer, is a better bet than spending a year trying to establish an act via a handful of music blogs and the Hype Machine chart. "There's a lot of covering your arse because when you sign someone you have to spend a lot of money and the risks are lower with these features," says Amir Amor, one quarter of Rudimental. "It's easier for labels to get someone out without spending as much cash – if it's a feature on someone else's record, then you're not really paying for it, you're getting money from it. A&Rs can test it out and say to their bosses: 'It's justified signing this artist.'"

One of the acts to benefit from the helping hand given by a feature is big-haired 19-year-old Eyre, whose voice dominated Rudimental's No 1 single Waiting All Night. James Merritt, who works in her management team, is clear she wouldn't be where she is without them. "It was always the plan to launch her with a feature," he says. "Mainly because record labels don't really want to take much of a risk these days. Twenty years ago they would have signed up loads of acts – it was like throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks. These days the budgets are much smaller."

With the other route to immediate pop stardom being The X Factor, launching via a feature is a way to test out a new act without risking shooting your musical load all in one go. "With The X Factor there is massive exposure for the artists so they're already known to the public when they put their music out," says Merritt. "But if you're dealing with more of an organic artist, such as Ella, then there has to be some way of getting her name known without running the risk that if you put the first single out and it doesn't work that she'll be labelled as a flop. You want to make sure that she's getting out there but without actually risking too much."

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"For me, it's exciting," says producer Shahid Khan, aka Naughty Boy, whose debut album Hotel Cabana features 14 guest vocalists, and who helped to establish Emeli Sandé via a series of features before producing the majority of her debut album. "You've got people like myself, Rudimental, Disclosure, and these are pretty much faceless artists, and it's a shift in the way the music business works. Music buyers don't necessarily need the face any more. But we need singers. I think it's a great thing for new artists."

One person who disagrees, however, is Adio Marchant, aka Bipolar Sunshine, whose own one-off, Bacardi-sponsored collaboration with Rudimental was used as a "fun experiment" to run alongside his own music. "It's a reflection on how the music industry is seeing certain artists," he claims. "It's almost like we're lowering the bar because it's like saying, 'OK, they've done a lot of features, so they must be great,' but in my eyes that doesn't mean you're great – that just means you've done a lot of features." Khan himself concedes that behind managers putting their artists forward for features, or labels signing acts off the back of successful features, is a lack of patience. "I wish I'd got into [the music business] in the 90s – those were the razzle and dazzle days. I'd be able to put faith into something fully and have A&Rs round me that weren't scared of losing their jobs and putting their balls on the line. None of that happens now. People are scared of the first hurdle."

One hurdle to overcome is radio, specifically Radio 1, whose playlist can make or break an act. For featured artists, already appearing on a hit single means they are familiar when they make their solo bow – and they have a ready-made backstory for Fearne Cotton to read out word for word when the time comes to play their debut single proper. "I think it's always good to have a backstory and I have one now," says Foxes, aka Louisa Allen, who appeared on Rudimental's top 20 single Right Here, as well as dance producer Zedd's US top 10 single Clarity. "Of course Radio 1 will want you for you, but I do think they feel more comfortable knowing that you've been on tracks that have done well, rather than you just appearing out of nowhere."

The idea of a backstory and context crops up again and again. "Radio 1 needs to know there's a story, not just from the past but going forward," agrees Khan, while Smith sees it as radio producers needing to know a singer has "come from somewhere". As Merritt puts it: "When Ella first appeared on the Rudimental track, some radio presenters would mention her name and some wouldn't, but that's not really the point. It's when she comes out with her own material that they can say: 'You'll remember her from Waiting All Night.'"

Features can even act almost as a type of pop work experience. One proven success story is John Newman, who has made the transition from singer-for-hire on Rudimental's Feel the Love and Not Giving In to bonafide chart-topper with his own Love Me Again and subsequent album, Tribute. Coming up via a feature afforded Newman the chance to sit back and watch how Rudimental dealt with all the extra-curricular stuff that comes with releasing music nowadays. "I wasn't doing the interviews, I wasn't doing the press. When I look back now, that's brilliant – because I learned from their mistakes and from what they did right. I had an insight into the music industry of how to handle it."

It can also help you to avoid becoming yet another boring acoustic troubadour, as Smith discovered. "I think being a feature is lovely because you get to practise your trade a bit before you dive fully into something. It's also exposed me to loads of different types of music. I was going for an acoustic sound when I first started out, but having done Latch and La La La, there's more of a reason to be limitless in the way I'm writing," says Smith.

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But is there a downside? Newman says: "What you find with a lot of featured artists is that they do these features to get broken and then they go away to start working on their material and their album. That's all right, but I think you've got to have that smash off the back of it." He points out that having a No 1 fronting a single for a dance act then creates its own problems when it's time for the solo release: "They struggle to write because there's a lot of pressure on them. For example Sam Smith has had two massive hits with Latch and La La La, but is he an artist? People can become very comfortable doing features and it's whether they can live up to that."

For someone who has won the Brits Critic's Choice and appeared in the BBC Sound of 2014 poll, all before releasing his debut single, Smith seems relatively relaxed. "These aren't other people's songs," he says calmly. "Latch is as much my song as it is Disclosure's song, and La La La is as much my song as it is Naughty Boy's. It may say 'feature', but I wrote those songs with those people. It's a collaboration, but one person is showcasing the other because they're in the position to. The features haven't added pressure because I have a lot of confidence in myself as an artist."

Following a feature becomes a strange balancing act of waiting for the right moment, but not waiting too long. It's what Newman describes as "going again" – that is, not treating the feature's success as proof you have made it, but coming back with something equally huge in your own name and in your own time. "If you do too many features, you're basically a famous session musician," he says.

Record buyers can also be fickle, with the focus more on individual tracks than who is behind them, and there have been examples of acts unsuccessfully following up features, for example A*M*E, who co-wrote and sang on Duke Dumont's No 1 single Need U (100%), but whose own follow-up Heartless missed the top 40. So what happens then? "I think it puts you back in the budget stakes with the label," Amor warns. "Some artists maybe weren't ready. Maybe they haven't fully discovered their own sound. But it's hard to say no if you've had a hit with a feature and people are calling you up to do more. Once you've had some success the label are going to want to run with it while it's hot, and that's a mistake. The artist has to be ready, otherwise they'll end up getting dropped and not getting the success they deserve."

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Despite Amor's concerns, the features train shows no signs of slowing. Colin Roberts, who manages Brits 2014 Critic's Choice runner-up Chlöe Howl, cites singer-songwriter Will Heard as an example of its continued legacy. "What's interesting with Will Heard, who was on Klangkarussell's Sonnentanz track, is that he'd been kicking about for ages and there was a scrum to sign him as soon as he was on that track. But all the labels knew about him," says Roberts. "He's one of those people who would always be in your inbox as an A&R or a manager, so his voice and his music was there, but when that track went top three, that's when they decided to sign him."

With the cumulative number of songs released outside of features by these artists totalling less than an EP's worth, 2014 will be the year when the featured artist will have to take this potential and alchemise it into solo success. That's when the real work starts.

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