Following the release of her two singles ‘Skinny Love’, ‘Shelter’ and in preparation for the third ‘People Help the People’, Birdy (AKA Jasmine Van den Bogaerde) has released her debut album this week..
Entitled BIRDY, the album features the 15-year-old's unique interpretation of songs by Bon Iver, Cherry Ghost, Phoenix, The National, The Postal Service and The xx.
Birdy has recorded the album in the UK and US and worked with some of the best producers of the moment including Rich Costey (Muse, TV on the Radio), James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Last Shadow Puppets and Klaxons) and Jim Abbiss (Adele, Arctic Monkeys).
Her fragile and emotive vocals have captured the hearts of some big fans in the UK media.
One of her main supporters, Fearne Cotton, had Birdy in the studio to do her first live radio interview and performance on Radio 1’s Live Lounge.
After her spine-tingling performances of ‘Shelter’ and her cover of Ed Sheeran’s ‘The A Team’, she was the 2nd most viewed UK musician on YouTube and became a top trending topic on Twitter.
In the last six months, more than ten million people have clicked on YouTube to see this 15-year-old from the New Forest perform.
It’s hard to believe that such a pure, powerful voice can come from such a tiny frame, or that such raw, deep emotion can be expressed by someone so young. But mainly, what all these new fans recognise is an artist who can take even a familiar song and make it completely her own.
When her parents fed her as a baby, Jasmine Van den Bogaerde would open her mouth so wide that they nicknamed her Birdy. The name stuck, and Birdy soon began to sing.
She started learning piano at home when she was about seven; within a year, she was sitting at the keyboard writing songs. Her first audience was her extended family: “My mum has ten brothers and sisters, so I have loads of cousins.”
When she was 12, she began reaching out to a bigger audience, putting a video of herself performing one of her songs on YouTube. “Someone from the record company saw it, and it escalated from there.”
Since then, life has been a bit of a blur. She recorded a demo singing her own arrangement of Bon Iver’s 'Skinny Love', it ended up on Radio One and became her debut single, taking her straight into the top 20 and appearing on TV in The Vampire Diaries.
She followed it with an equally original interpretation of The xx’s Shelter, and her debut album Birdy features her take on songs by artists such as Cherry Ghost, The National, Phoenix, The Postal Service and James Taylor.
“It’s just an introduction to my style,” she explains, saying that concentrating on covers will give her time to finish her GCSEs this year. “Although it’s nice to have one of my own songs, Without A Word, on there too.”
Birdy comes from a talented, creative family (her great-uncle was the actor and writer Sir Dirk Bogarde, although Birdy is too young to have ever met him).
Paolo Nutini, Lykke Li and Adele have influenced her a little, she says, but her biggest inspiration is her mum, Sophie, a classically trained concert pianist. “I’ve listened to her playing the piano all my life. And I love that.”
Choosing songs for the album has been fun, she says, but also hard work. “I’d listen to them, then decide which ones I’d try out.
Usually I just sit at the piano and work out an arrangement that feels like it’s my style, then I’ll work with the voice. And from that, I’d choose which ones I thought would be good for the album.”
When she was due to perform on Radio 1’s Live Lounge, for instance, she decided at the last minute to change from the track she’s been rehearsing to perform a spine-tingling version of Ed Sheeran’s The A Team.
Her instincts were proved right: with over 400,000 viewings, it made her the second most viewed UK artist on YouTube.
Birdy doesn’t turn 16 until May, but she is already talking about her second album, and looking forward to recording more of her own material.
“I’ve got loads, but they’re not finished. They’re just sketches of songs that I have in my head. I can’t wait to start putting them together, and to see what people think of them.”
This is her dream, she says, the thing she feels she was always meant to do. Although the reality doesn’t quite match up to her fantasies.
“You have to work. It doesn’t all just come to you. I don’t think I ever thought about that bit. I just imagined going to glamorous parties, and having a limo to take you everywhere. So far, I haven’t had one!”
Birdy is a beguiling mix of contradictions: she’s young, yet sings in a voice that is world-weary and steeped in soul.
She can be endearingly shy and nervous, yet she’s also an astonishingly focussed and charismatic live performer. She’s fragile, yet strong enough to fight her corner with both producers and label when she needs to. She is, quite simply, unique. And this is just the start.
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