Glaive

Glaive blends Midwestern emo with trap, pop, and EDM to cloak lyrics about heartache and depression inside infectious arrangements. Although the buoyant melodies and genre shifts of Cypress Grove in 2020 and All Dogs Go to Heaven in 2021 led some listeners to group him with hyperpop acts, his work favors direct emotional outpourings over that scene’s ironic stance. Through joint releases such as the 2021 EP Then I’ll Be Happy alongside ericdoa and the 2022 single “More Than Life” with Machine Gun Kelly, he refined his approach, culminating in the 2023 debut full-length I Care So Much That I Don’t Care at All, where his personal turmoil meets polished production and memorable hooks. He issued the EP A Bit of a Mad One the following year.

Living in a small North Carolina town, glaive first linked with peers on Discord and joined the slowsilver03 collective that includes quinn and kurtains. He began putting out music in early 2020, issuing solo tracks such as “Life Is Pain,” “Sick,” and “Clover” while appearing on songs by ericdoa and Savage Ga$p. Once an online audience formed, Interscope signed him during his sophomore year of high school, and Cypress Grove arrived that November.

Further singles surfaced throughout 2021, among them the Aldn collaboration “What Was the Last Thing U Said,” Renforshort’s “Fall Apart” from her Off Saint Dominique EP, and “Think You Right,” a Whethan and ericdoa team-up that peaked at number 47 on the U.S. Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Glaive released “Detest Me” and “I Wanna Slam My Head Against the Wall” as part of his own second EP, All Dogs Go to Heaven, in August 2021. Then I’ll Be Happy with ericdoa followed in October, and the pair toured North America with Aldn, Midwxst, and Underscores. Old Dog, New Tricks, a deluxe edition of All Dogs Go to Heaven carrying four extra tracks including the single “Prick,” appeared in January 2022. After his first headlining tour, glaive joined Machine Gun Kelly on “More Than Life,” which reached the Top 20 in New Zealand and registered on Billboard’s Bubbling Under chart in the United States. He dropped “Minnesota Is a Place That Exists” that June and played both solo dates and support slots for the Kid Laroi. glaive closed the year with the single “Three Wheels and It Still Drives!” and another run of shows alongside ericdoa.

His first album, I Care So Much That I Don’t Care at All, arrived in July 2023. Working with co-producers Jeff Hazin and Ralph Castelli, glaive leaned further into pop and emo elements while adopting a more introspective tone in his writing. The single “Huh” introduced his 2024 EP A Bit of a Mad One.