pop

Ruel

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Australian singer who arrived as a teenager with a voice pitched far below his age, heard on 'Younger'. Pop-soul ballads carried on falsetto and restraint.

Ruel Vincent van Dijk was born in Isleworth, London, in 2002, to an English mother and a Dutch-born father who runs the Sydney radio-advertising agency Eardrum. The family moved to Sydney in 2006. In 2015 his father sent producer M-Phazes a demo of Ruel singing a James Bay song, a message that led to their long-running production partnership.

His debut single, "Golden Years", appeared in April 2017. Two months later, at fourteen, he became the youngest artist to appear on Triple J's Like a Version, covering Jack Garratt's "Weathered" to half a million views within two days. "Don't Tell Me" followed in July, reaching number 86 on the ARIA chart and drawing praise from Elton John, who played it on BBC Radio 1.

Ruel signed to RCA Records internationally in late 2017 and joined Khalid's Australian and New Zealand tour dates that November. His debut EP, Ready, arrived in 2018 alongside a headline tour built around the same sparse arrangements, letting his voice lead; "Younger," the EP's key single, was certified gold, and that October he won the ARIA Award for Breakthrough Artist, becoming its youngest-ever recipient.

A second EP, Free Time, followed in 2019, led by the single "Painkiller", and he later opened shows on Shawn Mendes's tour. In 2020 he released a collaboration with Cosmo's Midnight, "Down for You", and issued the EP Bright Lights, Red Eyes, built around the single "As Long as You Care".

His debut studio album, 4th Wall, was released in March 2023, widening the production a little beyond the earlier EPs while keeping the slow-burning pop-soul writing and the falsetto and restraint that defined "Younger".

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