Declan McKenna

Recently, McKenna has been announced as the newly crowned BBC Music “Introducing Artist of the Year” for 2017, as part of the BBC Music Awards. Since its launch in 2007, BBC Music “Introducing” has been dedicated to discovering and supporting new music. Previous winners of this prestigious award include Florence and the Machine, Ed Sheeran, and Catfish and the Bottlemen. You can learn more about Declan McKenna and his “Introducing Artist of the Year” award here.

Declan McKenna’s debut album What Do You Think About The Car?, a collection of socially aware, melody-heavy indie pop songs, is out now via Columbia Records. The album received near universal praise, and was recently featured on NPR Music as a First Listen with NPR Music’s Bob Boilen noting, “Declan McKenna writes about a much bigger world than you or I might expect from a singer who only recently turned 18.” The New York Times also included McKenna’s single, “Humongous” in their weekly playlist, describing Declan’s music as “a strong throwback streak, from his reedy John Lennon-Liam Gallagher vocals to his melodic, midtempo guitar-strumming Britpop productions.” Declan McKenna was also named one of Rolling Stone’s “10 New Artists You Need to Know” for August 2017, who call his new album, What Do You Think About The Car?, “smart, moving and occasionally really funny.” The album additionally received strong reviews from UK’s Q, The Guardian, DIY and DORK. The album is available here: smarturl.it/CarDL.
What Do You Think About The Car? is the follow up to Declan’s EP Liar released last May. The full-length album was recorded in London and LA alongside renowned producer James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco (Depeche Mode, Arctic Monkeys). The song “Listen To Your Friends” was produced by Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend; the track, “Paracetamol” was produced by Neil Comber; and “Brazil” was produced by Max Marlow. Declan, an adept songwriter and multi-instrumentalist wrote all of the songs and co-wrote “Listen To Your Friends” on the 11-track LP.