LANY

Los Angeles outfit LANY weave atmospheric, rhythm-driven pop that draws on sleek R&B textures. Following a charting debut with their self-titled 2017 release, the group scored another Top 40 entry via the 2018 follow-up Malibu Nights and then secured their initial Billboard Hot 100 placement in 2019 through the Lauv duet “Mean It.” The 2020 set Mama’s Boy delivered their strongest domestic ranking to date, landing inside the Top Ten, while the Andrew Goldstein-helmed gg bb xx surfaced the next year. In 2023 the anguished a beautiful blur propelled the act to a number-four peak in Australia.

The project originated in Nashville during 2014 when Tulsa native Paul Jason Klein joined forces with local multi-instrumentalists Leslie Priest and Jake Goss, all three of whom had pursued formal music studies. Klein, traveling between Los Angeles and Nashville, connected with the pair amid their WRLDS work and the trio launched a fresh endeavor that took the name LANY—an abbreviation honoring both coastal cities and signaling their coast-to-coast ambitions. Their sound fuses glossy ’80s radio pop, ’90s R&B-soul grooves, and expansive synth layers.

Within four days the newcomers captured their earliest cuts, “Hot Lights” and “Walk Away.” A rapid succession of material followed: the three-song Acronyms EP and the five-track collection I Loved You. Extensive road work alongside Troye Sivan, Ellie Goulding, Halsey, and X Ambassadors helped cultivate an audience, culminating in a December 2015 signing with Polydor Records. The six-song Make Out EP compiled earlier material, spotlighting “ILYSB,” whose online traction surpassed 100,000 streams and later earned gold certification.

The 2016 global tour coincided with the release of “Where the Hell Are My Friends,” a track later included on the kinda EP issued that June. Their self-titled full-length arrived in 2017 and climbed to number four on the Billboard Top Rock Albums survey. Early the following year “Thru These Tears” introduced the Mike Crossey-produced Malibu Nights, an album shaped by a painful breakup and featuring “Thick and Thin” alongside “I Don’t Wanna Love You Anymore.” Worldwide dates supporting the record stretched into late 2019, during which the band unveiled the Julia Michaels collaboration “Okay” and the Lauv partnership “Mean It,” the latter becoming their first mainstream chart success across the Hot 100, Europe, and Australasia.

October 2020 brought the Americana-tinged Mama’s Boy, containing the reflective single “Good Guys” and additional songwriting contributions from Dan Smyers of Dan + Shay, Shane McAnally, and Sasha Sloan. The album entered the Billboard 200 at number seven, the group’s highest placement at the time. A June 2021 duet with Kelsea Ballerini titled “I Quit Drinking” preceded the standalone “Dancing in the Kitchen” and a deluxe edition of Mama’s Boy. That September the fourth studio album gg bb xx appeared on Polydor, co-produced with Andrew Goldstein and John Ryan; it reached number 114 on the Billboard 200 and marked keyboardist Priest’s final project before he departed to concentrate on independent writing and production.

Reduced to a duo, LANY issued “Love at First Fight” in June 2023 as the lead single from the heartbreak-focused a beautiful blur. Re-teaming with Malibu Nights producer Mike Crossey, the album emerged on Sunset Garden/Universal in September 2023, attaining number 120 domestically while achieving a career-best number four in Australia and a Top 20 finish on the Billboard alternative chart.