LoveLeo releases a new single and accompanying music video entitled “TUNG TIED” feat. Rico Nasty, out now via Godmode/Republic Records—listen HERE.
https://loveleo.lnk.to/TUNGTIEDPR
The single is the second taste of LoveLeo’s recent foray into hyperpop, an anything-goes genre where the artifice of pop meets the avant-garde.
At its core is a maniacal vocal sample that wraps in and out of itself – as if LoveLeo is literally tongue-tied. “The song is a dialogue that plays out in my head whenever I’m doing something stupid on the internet,” explains the artist. “Who am I trying to impress? I usually can’t answer that. The cat’s got my tongue.”
In the music video, directed by Charlotte Rutherford (Lil Nas X, Grimes, Rihanna), LoveLeo plays an alien from another planet who learned about how humans live by studying their social media. In what he believes is fitting in, LoveLeo lives his life as if only to post about it – spiked designer jackets set on fire, weightlifting in endless mirror rooms, even transforming his body into a giant cat-eating snake. “It’s a day in the life of an influencer who doesn’t realize he’s the one who’s been influenced,” says LoveLeo – the artist’s subtle critique on his own rise to stardom.
“TUNG TIED” arrives on the heels of “BUZZCUT” feat. blackwinterwells, a sly, https://loveleo.lnk.to/BUZZCUTPR sardonic look at the way our realities and appearances are increasingly blurring. Billboard named it among “10 Cool New Pop Songs To Get You Through The Week,” and proclaimed, “LoveLeo’s ambitions remain compelling.” Watch the official video, an absurdist, existential take on “YouTube makeup tutorial” style content, HERE.
https://youtu.be/Xvmk7o3ipKY
This month LoveLeo stars in the new Yves Saint Laurent campaign, in a short film directed by Jim Jarmusch called “French Water”. The film co-stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Indya Moore, Julianne Moore, and Chloë Sevigny. Watch HERE.
https://youtu.be/f1Sty3Crl2E
Last year, LoveLeo introduced himself as one to watch with his debut EP, LOOK AT THIS MESS I’VE MADE. Beyond praise from PAPER, Dazed, L’Officiel and more, HYPEBAE raved, “LOOK AT THIS MESS I’VE MADE is one of the summer’s best,” while Ones To Watch proclaimed, “LOOK AT THIS MESS I’VE MADE revels in the creative process, finding a sense of devious delight and rapture in these sonic diamonds in the rough.” Most recently, VMAN dove into his “surrealistic synth pop world” and admitted, “It’s the sound of someone teeming with ideas, unabashedly playing with sounds and giving plenty of room for exploration.” However, it only sets the stage for much more to come from LoveLeo this year.
LoveLeo has amassed nearly 100 million streams in less than a year and incited widespread critical acclaim. His 2019 breakthrough hit, “BOYFREN,” has garnered almost 55 million Spotify streams and 12 million views on the music video after capturing the top spot on Spotify’s US Viral 50 and Global Viral 50 Charts. He landed on the 2020 Dazed 100 list for his musical and fashion sensibilities, while his EP, LOOK AT THIS MESS I’VE MADE, and additional singles, “ROSIE,” “LEMONS” and “HEAD OVER HEELS,” opened up his world.
ABOUT LOVELEO
When he was a kid, Leo Reilly, who now records as LoveLeo, got excited when one of his friends made a “really bad” rap song. He’d recorded it directly into the SoundCloud app, which Reilly wasn’t even aware you could do, then shared it out to all of his friends, at which point it took his school by storm. After experimenting for a few years and decamping to San Francisco to study fashion, Leo finally landed on an upbeat sound that allowed him to find inspiration in music he loved, no matter where or when it came from. Later, back at his parents’ house at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, he put together his breakout single “BOYFREN” in his childhood bedroom while his mom and dad were making chicken parm for dinner. After its release at the end of 2019, “BOYFREN” went viral and paved the way for 2020 singles “ROSIE” and “LEMONS.” On his debut eight track EP, LOOK AT THIS MESS I’VE MADE, Reilly taps into a rich wellspring of personal moments of growth, filtered through his unique sense of humor. The EP, its singles and their kinetic and innovative videos, all of which Reilly co-directed, paint a portrait of a rising artist on the cusp of something big. As LoveLeo, Reilly has landed on a sound that is playful and probing, the result of an urge to create music that is not so much reliant on genre as it is a reflection of the 21-year-old’s idiosyncratic viewpoint and style. His songs are deceptively simple earworms that probe big ideas with a light touch, but Reilly never pushes listeners toward a revelation. Instead, he offers up a wonky, sometimes-cartoonish world of slick players and devious villains who’re posturing and fumbling through love and life, just like the rest of us.
https://www.instagram.com/loveleo/
http://www.madeulook.club/
