Aston Merrygold

English pop vocalist Aston Merrygold first rose to prominence through his role in the early-2010s boy band JLS. Equally accomplished as a dancer and television figure, he launched a solo path once the multi-platinum, chart-dominant quartet dissolved, inking a deal with Warner Bros. Records in 2014. Issuing several singles annually—among them the groovy Top 30 success “Get Stupid”—the Michael Jackson-inspired performer also unveiled his introductory EP, Precious, in 2017.

Raised in Peterborough, England, where he entered the world in 1988 amid an expansive, multiracial household, Merrygold gravitated toward singing, dancing, and soccer during childhood. National attention arrived in 2002 when he performed Michael Jackson’s “Rockin’ Robin” on the British talent series Stars in Their Eyes. Shortly thereafter he appeared on the children’s program Fun Song Factory. By 2008 he had united with a quartet assembled by his acquaintance Marvin Humes alongside Oritsé Williams and JB Gill. The resulting group, JLS, advanced to the fifth season of The X Factor. Although they placed second, the foursome secured a major-label contract with Epic Records. Across the ensuing five years they delivered four Top Three albums, five U.K. number-one singles, and headlined their own feature film before parting ways in December 2013.

A year afterward, Merrygold stepped forward as a solo artist under Warner Bros. His opening release, “Get Stupid,” climbed into the U.K. Top 30, buoyed by its James Brown-meets-Bruno Mars rhythmic zest. The subsequent “Show Me” maintained the funk-driven momentum. In 2016 he returned to the charts with the driving electro-dance cut “I Ain’t Missing You,” a collaboration with LDN Noise. The simmering “Too Late” appeared next, signaling a shift toward greater maturity that crystallized in the sultry, Zayn-esque “One Night in Paris” of 2017. That same year saw the six-track debut EP Precious surface as an interim statement while he prepared his first proper album. In 2018 he broadened his sonic range via the electronic dance single “Across My Heart,” a Gawler partnership that sampled Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name.” Continuing in that rhythm-centric vein, he issued the island-flavored “Bon Appetit” and the trap-tinged “Poison Ivy.”