In an era of slow-building careers, Jonas Blue is an anomaly. In just three years, the five times Brit Award nominee has become a pop powerhouse, a globally-successful songwriter, producer and performer with more than 6 billion streams and 35 million singles sales to his name. He could have stayed a singles artist, continuing to add to his armoury of platinum-plated, global hits and seeing his reputation as a songwriter, producer, DJ and talent-spotter soar.
But Jonas – aka Londoner Guy Robin – has never taken the easy option. It’s why he chooses to work with new or unknown singers, helping to launch their careers, rather than simply team up with chart stars. It’s why none of his songs sound remotely the same, why he refuses to be defined by genre, why he continues to surprise.
‘Blue’, his debut album which was released in November 2018, was his chance to push the envelope further, to take fans on a journey and to expose even more fresh talent from around the world. 15 songs feature 21 guest artists. Alongside seven huge hits are eight brand new tracks that take Jonas Blue in to new territory, that mix and match guests with explosive results, that prove that the man with the Midas touch is only just getting started.
Having scored one of the summer’s biggest global hits with the irrepressible ‘Rise’, featuring the former Vine sensations-turned-chart newcomers Jack & Jack, Jonas Blue owned the autumn with ‘Polaroid’, his long-rumoured collaboration with Liam Payne. But in true Jonas style, he threw a surprise in to the mix in the shape of Lennon Stella, the Nashville TV series actress making her pop debut.
Blue persistently strives to swerve convention, perhaps nowhere more so than on the Spanish scorcher ‘Wild’. Featuring fast-rising Merseysider Chelcee Grimes (a pro female footballer who has already co-written hits for Dua Lipa, Kesha and Kylie), Argentinian actress and Latin Disney superstar TINI and Grammy Award-winning Puerto Rican rapper Jhay Cortez, the aptly-titled ‘Wild’ takes Jonas Blue in to carnival territory for the first time.
Among the sonic surprises on Blue are the torch-to-EDM song ‘Desperate’ and the ballsy ‘Supernova’, the former featuring Scottish folk-pop singer Nina Nesbitt, the latter the large-lunged Lancashire singer Charlotte O.C., who was tipped for fame in the early Noughties before her career stalled.
Blue opens with the celebratory ‘Drink To You’, featuring Zac Abel. It’s a ‘cheers’ to the fact that Jonas Blue resolved to make an album, a bottoms up to him doubling down. The album ends with ‘Fast Car’, the debut single that sent Guy’s career supernova in 2016.
So much has changed for the man who, until 2017, was still making music in his dad’s garage, but his drive remains the same. Now with his own label, Blue Future, established to promote the new talent that he and his manager, Aaron Ross, continue to discover and with a schedule that takes him all around the world all year, Guy could be afford to sit back and take stock. But moving forward is what Jonas Blue has always been about.