Tiffany Day: From "Hallelujah" to Pop Phenom
Photo: @freewillstudios
Tiffany Day got her start in a similar fashion to many Gen Z artists, blowing up on the video-sharing platform YouTube. Perhaps you have seen her viral rendition of "Hallelujah," sung into an Italian well with heavenly acoustics, which garnered several million views and left us with zero doubts about her vocal abilities. Or maybe you have seen her solo sing-offs, where she films herself covering popular songs from two angles to give the impression that she is competing against herself.
Last year, Day began stepping away from the YouTube covers and towards writing and producing her own music, a departure she is objectively killing. The 20-year-old artist has been quietly pumping out airy pop tracks with relatable lyrics about love and loss. The Lucian-assisted "I Want My Money Back!" and "FLOWERS" are independence anthems that will make you want to call up your ex just to tell them to fuck off.
Day admitted on Twitter that some of her songs are not necessarily inspired by actual people or relationships. She also confessed that her songwriting process is not always reflective of the way she feels in the moment she is writing, sharing, "I just realized that I write happy songs when I'm sad and sad songs when I'm happy."
The production style in much of Day's music is a fusion of pop and dance influences; you can distinctly hear the latter in "Crush," an electric track revolving around retrospection on someone Day thought was "kinda different" but ended up being "just another crush." In a YouTube video, Day credits Whethan as one of her favorite artists and musical inspirations.
The recent rapid rise of Day can be partially attributed to the enigmatic phenomenon of "playlisting," in which a song and artist can become a hit overnight by being included on one of Spotify's curated collections. Last month Day was featured as the cover art for Spotify's popular "Fresh Finds."
More than just our or Spotify's latest anti-pop obsession, Day is also a vocal proponent of Asian representation in the music and entertainment industry and hopes to inspire the next generation of Asian musicians. She shared on Twitter,
"There needs to be more Asian representation in this industry. This is one of the biggest reasons I’m still pushing. If I grew up with people that looked like me on the screens, I feel like i would've loved myself a lot more earlier on. I wanna be the one to inspire confidence !!!"
From keshi, REI AMI, to UMI, we are experiencing first-hand a new wave of innovative Asian artists that have traditionally been underrepresented in the pop landscape. And Day is looking to be the next artist to rise up thanks to the democratization of platforms like Spotify and YouTube.
Day's career may just be beginning, but we are picking up everything she is putting down. Here is to watching this pop phenom explode in the year to come.
