The #3 single in America, slowly climbing out of the looming shadows of “Die With A Smile” and the still-charting “Pink Pony Membership,” is a pop-rock track known as “Bizarre.” The observe sounds immediately acquainted: a towering edifice of sound with multitracked, devotional-coded vocals in a perpetual rousing refrain, lyrics that equate the wife-guy way of life to breathless non secular give up, and a voice that initiatives extra gravitas than the fratty-looking zoomer that’s intoning it. It pointedly aspires to {couples} dances and wedding ceremony tributes — there’s a separate “Wedding ceremony Model,” for the besotted amongst you.
However the artist, Alex Warren, possibly isn’t so acquainted. Perhaps you’ve heard him on the radio alongside his friends Benson Boone or Teddy Swims. Maybe you caught his Jimmy Fallon showcase lately. Or maybe you heard him jamming with Ed Sheeran and Shaboozey at a Coachella satellite tv for pc occasion. You’ve definitely heard individuals like him. However who, precisely, is he? To reply that query, sadly, we now have to speak in regards to the Hype Home.
The Hype Home was a Los Angeles collective of TikTok influencers and their orbiters that was lively all through the primary half of the 2020s. Warren was one of many authentic members — he’s the one who got here up with the title. He shared the home with now-wife Kouvr Annon; founder and YouTuber Thomas Petrou; a pre-“Food plan Pepsi” Addison Rae; TikTok megastar Charli D’Amelio and her sister Dixie; and dozens of different TikTok stars and aspirants, 42 in all. The Hype Home wasn’t the primary so-called “content material home” — one checklist on-line counts a number of dozen, together with the Vibe Crew, the Collab Crew, and the precisely named Home No person Requested For — nor was it probably the most infamous. Nevertheless it’s most likely the home with the largest declare on the musical charts.
The Hype Home was a literal home — a 16,000-square foot mansion in Hollywood Hills with 10 bedrooms, a lavish yard and pool, plentiful mirrors, souped-up sound, and different influencer-friendly facilities. It was a short-run, abysmally reviewed Netflix actuality present, during which Warren was closely featured. Nevertheless it was additionally a job. The home and its inhabitants had been the topic of a 2020 New York Occasions profile filled with disconcerting quotes and bleak dispatches from the intersection of hustler grindset and viral fame. “You possibly can’t come and stick with us for every week and never make any movies, it’s not going to work,” Petrie mentioned. “This complete home is designed for productiveness. If you wish to celebration, there’s a whole lot of homes that throw events in LA each weekend. We don’t need to be that. It’s not according to anybody on this home’s model.”
It won’t shock you to listen to that events passed off, nor that the home’s model was rapidly tarnished by inter-influencer drama. A full accounting of the fallout is out of scope of this music column — for the morbidly curious, a partial but intensive timeline could be discovered right here — not least as a result of Warren managed to flee a lot of the grime.
He additionally escaped the home, saying his departure in 2022 by way of a completely unconvincing video about his supposed lack of exhausting emotions. Equally unsurprisingly, his cordiality was enforced by a battalion of NDAs and different restrictive contracts — particulars of which subsequently leaked. As soon as the hype disappeared from the Hype Home, individuals began to speak; Warren did so on an episode of podcast Viall Recordsdata titled “Actuality Roundup, Sp*rm Donor Profiles, [and] VPR Drama.” (You aren’t anticipated to grasp this.) He gave a barely realer story, mentioned he and Petrou had been not on talking phrases, after which pivoted to what he actually needed to speak about: his music.
Actuality TV stars, YouTubers, and different minor celebrities have at all times had vainness music initiatives. (A few of them are even good!) However even their most clout-chasing, gossip-baiting songs nonetheless tried to be precise songs. The songs produced and impressed by content material homes, regardless of their self-stylings as incubators of future expertise, are normally much less songs than drama with a beat. The ur-text of this style, and doubtless the one one you’ve heard of until you frequent influencer snark subreddits, is “It’s On a regular basis Bro” by Jake Paul. Paul, a YouTuber who later turned a Trump-promoting boxer, acquired his bros from predecessor content material home Staff 10 to hitch him in an ordeal of disses, posturing, and novice rap, The observe is concurrently low-effort but sweaty with effort; it wears its awfulness as a type of braggadocio. As a result of these sorts of songs have a tendency to come back in clusters, “It’s On a regular basis Bro” spawned a number of response tracks, most notably “Its EveryNight Sis,” by Violet and rival YouTuber RiceGum. (It’s higher, however nonetheless terrible.) The Hype Home’s authentic contribution to the style was secondhand: “Nonetheless Softish” by home orbiter Josh Richards, a automobile to accuse numerous (non-Warren) members of the collective of dishonest. (As soon as once more, it’s terrible.)
After signing a cope with Atlantic Data in 2022, Warren entered the fracas with a track known as “Burning Down,” posted a preview of the observe to TikTok with the caption “Wrote this about that content material home…” This wasn’t Warren’s first track — he’d been posting music on-line on a semi-anonymous burner, and by the point he launched the acoustic ballad “One Extra I Love You” in 2021, his music was already nicely polished. “Burning Down” has a cheery melody, jaunty piano line, and smug self-confidence, evocative of numerous inescapable radio hits. They serve a objective: “Used to inform me you’d pray for me — you had been praying for my downfall,” Warren sings, weaponizing the track’s personal smarm towards his foes.
After all, regardless of being explicitly and deliberately a content-house diss observe, “Burning Down” is totally different from the aforementioned slop: It’s attempting to be a track. It had endurance — sufficient that Warren included it on his 2024 album You’ll Be Alright, Child (Chapter 1), then juiced its lifespan additional with a Joe Jonas remix. By comparability, “It’s On a regular basis Bro” peaked at #91 on the Billboard Scorching 100. And it wasn’t even Paul’s highest-charting track – the equally terrible “Jerika,” a duet together with his faux spouse, peaked at #86. But the one countdowns you’ll discover it on now are YouTube slop compilations titled issues like “WORST SONGS EVER?!?!” “It’s On a regular basis Bro” might have, because the New York Occasions argued, informed us the place music was stepping into 2018; nevertheless it definitely didn’t inform us the place music was promoting.
“Burning Down” then took on a lifetime of its personal. Whereas the only peaked at a middling #69, it served its objective: serving to Warren escape drama confinement. Holding his lyrics obscure not solely helped fend off potential contract attorneys, nevertheless it gave Warren’s writing an attraction past the TikTok trustworthy. The primary remark below the TikTok is consultant: “I do know this was written for hype home however rattling does this hit rising up in a poisonous household setting.” So “Bizarre” doesn’t stray removed from the sound or the sincerity of “Burning Down.” Nor does the remainder of You’ll Be Alright, Child (Chapter 1). The album is unchangingly competent: a barrage of Mumford & Sons-style strums and OneRepublic-style pop-rock behemoths, all aimed straight on the charts. The people affect is much less busker than American Idol guitar man, or presumably megachurch worship track — Warren grew up Catholic and claims worship music as an affect. And its vibe is the alternative of TikTok clout-chasing — nearly explicitly so.
It’s comprehensible that Warren would need to distance himself from the Hype Home; he appears to now hate the entire expertise, and it’s the least attention-grabbing factor about him. He had a troubled, abusive upbringing; his father died of most cancers when he was 9 years outdated, and his mom kicked him out of the home when he was 18. A buddy’s mother or father unintentionally shot him when he was 18, and he nonetheless has the bullet in his lung. Pre-vlogging, his hobbies included taking aside and jailbreaking computer systems. But the all-content way of life looms however. When The Guardian identified that the wedding-centric promotion of “Bizarre” wasn’t that far faraway from his outdated private movies, the interviewer famous: “Our dialog has grow to be tense, and a publicist informs me our time is sort of up.” And on the Viall Recordsdata podcast, Warren tries exhausting to distance himself from influencer dilettantes, however one senses his personal anxieties coming by means of: “I’ve X quantity of hundreds of thousands of followers, I’m simply going to do that swap. And so they watch my TikToks — why received’t they take heed to my music?”
Warren’s resolution to this: grow to be a Hype Home of himself, always grinding. He’s repeatedly insisted that he pursued music “the best method”: taking music classes, learning music idea, studying tips on how to produce. He obsesses over algorithms — his personal phrases — speaks in assured trade insider-y soundbytes, and comports himself like a person decided to optimize his profession. The individuals he’s named as influences — Benson Boone, Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi, Benny Blanco, Jack Antonoff — sound like a networking rolodex. He made the scene finally weekend’s Stagecoach festivities, hobnobbing Lana Del Rey, Jelly Roll, mgk, and Shaboozey amongst others. Warren’s not a fan of Taylor Swift (though he and his fiancee selected “Lover” as their wedding ceremony track). However he’s evidently attempting to place himself as her singer-songwriter peer; he’s even launched a separate model of “Burning Down” known as “Alex’s Model.”
And all this appears to have received individuals over. In contrast to Addison Rae, with whom Warren shared a mainly an identical background (to not point out a literal home), Warren has gotten comparatively few accusations of being an trade plant. He has haters, however they’re largely holdovers from his TikTok influencer days, upset about issues like his supposed copying of YouTuber David Dobrik or his spouse posting goofy stuff. (TikTok drama is a petty world.) And even these haters periodically, grudgingly, admit that they like Warren’s music.
Look, taking part in authenticity video games with these things is pointless. TikTok, for all its faults, is a medium the place suburban children can compete with nepo infants. Jake Paul acquired Gucci Mane on his single by allegedly personally paying him a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars} and funded all of it with enterprise capital; Alex Warren acquired Joe Jonas on his single by being on Atlantic Data and acquired his album out with old-school A&R. Addison Rae works with Max Martin proteges. Warren works with people who find themselves much less well-known — producer Adam Yaron, songwriter Mags Duval, guitarist Cal Shapiro — however who ship precisely what the trade desires. His profession observe has undoubtedly been publicity-greased, but when the trade might reliably plant artists, it’d absolutely have accomplished that for the one-time most-followed individual on TikTok, Charli D’Amelio. (Her debut single, “in case you ask me to,” is loads like Olivia Rodrigo’s breakout hit “drivers license”; you almost certainly have by no means heard it.)
Whereas Warren’s writing about legitimately weak material, he acquired that concept from a Logan Paul podcast. To his rising fan base, that origin story doesn’t matter as a result of You’ll Be Alright, Child (Chapter 1) and albums prefer it sound actual. On the charts, there’s nearly nothing that may’t be forgiven by huge stomping anthems.
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