Australian pop singer Tones and I quickly captured attention with her first releases, which blended danceable energy and haunting melodies into an overall upbeat style. Powered by the enormous reach of “Johnny Run Away” and “Dance Monkey,” her 2019 debut EP The Kids Are Coming earned platinum certification. More singles appeared across the following two years, culminating in her first full-length album, 2021’s Welcome to the Madhouse, which entered the Australian charts at number one.
Tones and I was born Toni Watson on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne. Frustrated with retail work in 2018, she took up busking on the streets of Melbourne and made occasional journeys to the coastal town of Byron Bay to perform for passersby. Growing popularity soon allowed her to leave her job and collect several busking competition wins. In 2019 she signed with the Sony-affiliated label Bad Batch Records. Her debut single, “Johnny Run Away,” came out that March and quickly turned into a viral hit, accumulating streams and climbing to the top of the ARIA singles chart. The follow-up, “Dance Monkey,” proved even more dominant, establishing an Australian record for weeks spent at number one while also reaching the summit in more than thirty countries. Both tracks appeared on the August 2019 release of The Kids Are Coming. The uplifting single “Fly Away” arrived in 2020, with “Won’t Sleep” and “Cloudy Day” following in 2021; all three songs featured on her ARIA chart-topping debut album Welcome to the Madhouse. She resumed releasing material in early 2022 with “Eyes Don’t Lie” and opened 2023 with the empowering track “I Made It.” Additional songs such as “I Am Free” and “The Greatest” preceded her second album, which was previewed by the early-2024 single “Dreaming.” The more mature and emotionally charged sophomore effort, Beautifully Ordinary, appeared that August.
