LP

Emerging from Los Angeles in the early 2000s, the genre-defying singer-songwriter LP arrived with an arresting combination of emotional openness, confident presence, and incisive melodies. Their supple, richly textured voice calls to mind singers such as Linda Perry, Gwen Stefani, and Chrissie Hynde. Across the ensuing years LP has released a succession of well-regarded albums, including Suburban Sprawl & Alcohol in 2004, the Billboard 200 entry Forever for Now in 2014, the platinum-certified European breakthrough Lost on You in 2016, and Churches in 2021. Along the way they supplied material for Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Spoon, and Rita Ora, among others. Their seventh studio album, Love Lines, appeared in 2023.

Brought up in New York amid repeated listens to Joni Mitchell, the Doors, the Pretenders, Nirvana, and Jeff Buckley, LP refined their skills in various groups before moving to California and issuing the solo debut Heart-Shaped Scar in 2001. David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker produced that record. Momentum built in 2004 with the second album, Suburban Sprawl & Alcohol, whose track “Wasted” served as the theme for seasons two and three of the Nickelodeon series South of Nowhere. A 2006 performance at the South by Southwest Music Conference triggered a label bidding war that led to a contract with Island Records.

While at Island, LP began composing songs for other acts, among them Cher, Leona Lewis, Rihanna, and Christina Aguilera. A 2011 bank commercial that incorporated portions of “Into the Wild” sparked widespread listener interest, with viewers searching online to identify the performer of the line “Somebody left the gate open”; the exposure even prompted a CNN news segment. The Warner Bros. EP Into the Wild: Live at Eastwest Studios came out in April 2012, yet a full-length Warner project, the Rob Cavallo-produced Forever for Now, did not arrive until two years later, when it entered the Billboard 200 and reached number 132.

In 2016 LP released the fourth studio album, Lost on You, on Vagrant Records. Its opening cut, “Muddy Waters,” underscored the tense final scene of season four of Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black. The title track meanwhile topped singles charts in at least six European countries, and the album itself placed inside the top ten and earned platinum certification in several territories, including France, Italy, and Poland.

After signing with BMG, LP returned in 2018 with the fifth studio album, Heart to Mouth, another international success that yielded the hit single “Girls Go Wild.” In 2021 the emotionally resonant tracks “The One That You Love” and “How Low Can You Go” charted across multiple countries ahead of the sixth album, Churches. Like its two predecessors, the record performed strongly throughout Europe, most notably in the Czech Republic, where it became LP’s third consecutive top-ten entry. The mid-2023 single “Golden” introduced the seventh album, Love Lines, issued that September and also featuring the singles “One Like You” and the propulsive “Love Song.”