18-year-old newcomer Oscar Welsh has quickly established himself as an artist to watch this year with his acclaimed debut EP ‘Vernal’, racking up widescale press and streaming support.
In particular, the track ‘Sixteen’ has garnered loads of attention from fans, charting on Spotify’s Viral Charts in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
Lyrically, ‘Sixteen’ taps into the singer’s main aim: to document the coming of age process. Oscar is one of an exciting group of musicians right now with the ability to translate the feeling of being young during a very specific moment in history to the wider world.
Since his debut, Oscar has been growing his fanbase across Southeast Asia, with the Philippines and Indonesia ranking in his Top 10 Countries on Spotify based on streams.
On his style of music, he shares,
“I want to make something that’s totally new. I wanna make stuff that people listen to and go, ‘What the f*ck is that?!’.”
At just 18-years-old, Suffolk-born Oscar Welsh has already figured out what it takes most dedicated young music fans a good while longer to fully embrace: you can get a whole lot more out of the experience if you erase the genre barriers and open your mind to the vast wealth of music history out there.
He says,
“When people ask what kind of music I listen to, I realise that I don’t know loads of artists in a specific genre but I listen to a lot of artists from a lot of different genres.”
Indeed, it was Stevie Wonder that first ignited the creative flame under the singer before he’d even hit his teens. Hailing from the same town (and attending the same school) as Ed Sheeran, the influence of the Framlingham superstar unsurprisingly loomed large over the area, however, it wasn’t until an early piano teacher introduced him to Wonder that Oscar began to feel inspired.
He recalls,
“I just instantly fell in love with him. He’s a genius. So while a lot of other kids were listening to Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, I was obsessed with Stevie. Then I started writing my own music.”
Oscar dabbled with music in his early teens, but it was when he began to experiment with production and beat-making programmes that his eclectic tastes suddenly went from something he was excited by to something that felt achievable himself.
“The funnest part to me was finding out that anyone can just download Logic and make music – which is what I did. I learnt how to make beats, and I’d put things on a Soundcloud for feedback,” he enthuses. “There are no barriers now, and nothing standing between you sitting down, learning how to do something on your laptop and creating something.”
The warm groove of last year’s debut single “Get Yourself To Sleep” began life indebted to the neo-soul of Anderson .Paak (Welsh is a self-confessed “superfan”), but takes on a more youthful, indie influence when seen through the eyes of the 18-year-old. Follow up single “S.A.D”, meanwhile, took that blend of soul-tinged, sun-bleached bedroom-pop and dialled up the production.
With the pandemic scrapping his planned A-Level exams, it has left the singer with all the time in the world to concentrate on honing his craft and forging connections. To keep himself entertained, he began writing songs for fans on Tik Tok, with close to 60K followers. Meanwhile, he’s been putting in the hours to widen his already-broad musical palette even further, learning classical pieces on the piano. Having largely taught himself from the beginning, and with the urge to keep pushing to create ever more interesting, genre-splicing sounds like his heroes, you sense he’s only just getting started.
Listen to more of Oscar below.
