This episode is best consumed via video, which you can watch on Spotify or YouTube!
Over the course of the past year, the 25 year old singer Laufey has become the most listened to jazz singer alive today. Between Jan 2022 and December 2023, she went from having under a million monthly listeners to 26 million monthly listeners on Spotify — mostly thanks to her millions of Gen Z fans.
Her 2023 album also won a Grammy award, reached number one on Billboard’s jazz album charts, and had the biggest jazz album debut in Spotify history.
Laufey has far surpassed what any rational economic analyst would estimate to be the total addressable market for her music, thanks to her genius, all-encompassing marketing strategy.
In my opinion, Laufey is a trailblazer and one of the first truly modern artists of the TikTok age. She recognizes that to be an artist today means creating great art across countless channels, not just writing good music. She’s infiltrated and captured the hearts of the shy teen girls, who increasingly look to TikTok rather than their popular classmates for favorite artists. And she proved that, if you can get people to fall in love with you and your personality online, you can get your fans to listen to any music you make.
Let’s dive into how she did it.
Laufey spent most of her life studying classical music. Both her grandparents were music professors in China, her mom is a professional violinist in Iceland, and Laufey started playing piano at age 4 under their tutelage.
In secondary school, instead of choosing a more practical career path like her sister did, Laufey doubled down on studying classical music, first at an Icelandic conservatory, then at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.
But it's clear that in choosing the music path, Laufey wasn't blindly or idealistically following a passion. Outside of class, Leve started booking hours long meetings with people from the music industry, asking each of them to quote, tell her everything they knew about the music industry.
And she started posting prolifically on TikTok starting in spring 2020, when she was still in school and TikTok was still relatively young. She accumulated a modest following, mostly jazz fans who loved her voice and people who were intrigued by the glimpses in her life as a half Chinese girl in Iceland.
Then suddenly, her listener graph went exponential. In 2022, Laufey sextupled her listener count, hitting 6 million monthly listeners by the end of December.
How? Her twin sister Junia started cyberbullying her. Playfully. Here is a sample:
Exhibit A. Very unflattering video of Laufey sleeping, captioned, quote, When you tell your twin sister to stop talking to that crusty guy, and she goes ahead and writes a song about him.
Exhibit B. A video of Laufey eating a fully brown banana, captioned, quote, Attention! Laufey likes her bananas. Rotten! Exhibit C. Another video of Laufey sleeping, captioned, Attention! Laufey goes out on stage in 10 minutes and she is sleeping.
These videos seem simple and silly, but they're actually genius. Junia is showing the fanbase that teasing and playfully bullying Laufey is a love language for them. And, turns out, when her twin sister roasts her, other people want to join in too.
Here's an example of a TikTok where Laufey is fake crying to a fan calling her Laundry because that's what her name often gets autocorrected to. 1.3 million people have liked the video and there are countless comments calling her other nicknames like Lobotomy, Lavatory, etc. Because Laufey frequently reposts or interacts with this kind of fan content, her fans are incentivized to make more videos about her, knowing there's a good chance that she will respond.
And of course, in all these videos, what is playing in the background? Laufey's music, which starts going viral on tiktok.
In all their TikToks, Laufey and Junia avoid revealing intimate secrets about themselves, but they present themselves in an extremely raw way.
In addition to sharing unflattering videos and silly childhood stories about each other, Laufey makes a point of going off script at every single concert and speaking directly to the audience in her natural, slightly awkward style. These little speeches are always recorded by adoring fans and posted onto TikTok where they go viral.
One particularly viral concert moment happened when Laufey tripped on stage and Junia made a TikTok admitting, or pretending to admit, that she had planted a banana peel on the stage floor to make Laufey trip on purpose as revenge for the time when Laufey locked her in a school locker at age 13.
Unclear if this is actually true, but the fans ate it up on TikTok.
These kinds of stunts create a sort of cinematic universe around their sisterhood, such that, as a viewer, it’s easy to feel like you’re friends or even siblings with them, even though you actually don't know that much about them. One tiktok that really drove this home for me was of a fan’s text conversation with her mom, where she says, Mom, can I go see the Laufey and Junia concert? Mom replies, Oh, are those the two girls you're always talking about? The fact that these teen girls are constantly talking to their mothers about Laufey and Junia, as though they're friends or classmates, is insane to me.
But her mom replies, Okay, you can go to the concert if Laufey likes your video on TikTok, because I know that'll never happen. But lo and behold, she posts this screenshot on TikTok, fans swarm to tag Laufey and Junia in the comments, and Laufey likes the video. So presumably, this girl gets to go to the concert, and other girls are inspired to post their own tiktoks related to Laufey, because they might get recognized by Laufey too — thus again feeding her virality.
But the absolute keystone to their success, in my opinion, has been the way that Junia and Laufey portray themselves as introverted and nerdy in a way that's relatable and charming. A simple example is this TikTok where Junia is drinking tomato soup , captioned, quote, nobody in this park knows I'm having my soup with a side of the gut wrenching Rachmaninoff cello sonata in G minus, opus 19, , third movement, at full volume.
But the real game changer, the thing that really won her the hearts of shy teen girls worldwide, was Laufey's song, Letter to My Thirteen Year Old Self. Here's a recording from a concert, where she played the song:
"I list up a couple of things that I thought were kind of like my downfalls as a 13 year old. I was kind of awkward and I had like really curly hair and I was Chinese in like a very Icelandic community and it felt, I felt so different and odd. And it turns out that those things are actually the reasons that make me unique and make me me."
You can just hear the audience screaming, "Me too! That's me!" after every sentence.
And here's an excerpt from the actual song:
"Voices echo in the gym / Another girl's had her first kiss / Please don't think too much of it, darling / I'm so sorry that they pick you last / try to say your foreign name and laugh"
But there's a happy ending to her story, which is key:
"One day you'll be up on stage / Little girls will scream your name / The days of tears and failure fears and no one cares / will all make sense"
In one video, someone goes up and interviews random attendees after the concert, and every single one of them admitted to crying during this particular song.
The way this song highlights Laufey's brand of being different and unique and shy is particularly smart because it dovetails perfectly with her genre of music. Laufey often says that another major reason she felt strange and socially isolated as a teen was because of her passion for classical and jazz music.
Every day after school she would just go home and practice cello for hours and listen to her dad's jazz records. So to see Laufey succeed in pursuing this weird non conventional musical passion of hers, To see the very things that made her deeply uncool at 13 become the same things that would launch her dream career, to see a classically trained musician share the stage with pop stars, is quite literally the stuff of fantasies to people who identify with Laufey at 13, who have weird interests that they feel socially ostracized for.
This song, Letter to My 13 Year Old Self, alone has inspired at least two major TikTok trends: one where people posted pictures of their natural hair ("Don't you worry about your curly hair"), and another one where people shared their biggest dreams ("Keep on going with your silly dream").
Laufey has really leaned into this introverted, sensitive brand and cultivated a whole community of shy fans with activities specifically designed to appeal to them. She's essentially reimagined the concert experience for her audience. At every one of her concerts, she has a little book exchange outside where you exchange books with other fans.
And once the concert starts, it feels much more like a night at the symphony than a pop concert. Unlike Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo, who dance around in sparkly mini skirts against neon backdrops, Laufey wears lovely gowns and simple sundresses on stage , accompanied by a collection of musical instruments.
She invites Junia on stage to accompany her on the violin, and sometimes, in the middle of a song, will accuse Junia of stealing her shoes.
And she's famously invited the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra to perform with her at Lollapalooza, a major music festival that's known for being a wild party.
And what kinds of brand partnerships is Laufey doing?
With her nearly 6 million TikTok followers and Grammy award, You might expect her to work with some pretty big brands, but no. Instead, she has partnered with a variety of small independent bookstores to sell her favorite books, and with the independent coffee shop Maman to sell a Laufey lavender latte. To celebrate the launch of her latest album, Lévé invited fans around the world to join, quote, A Very Laufey Day, with an itinerary full of Laufey's favorite activities on September 10th, 2023.
Around the world, on that day, fans started their day by dressing in their most, quote, Laufey-core outfit. Think blouses, loafers, bows in your hair, things that Laufey frequently wears. Then, they headed to their coffee shop, and then to a local farmer's market or flower garden, while streaming her song California and Me, and then wrote letters to their 13 year old selves in a local bookstore. It's a wholesome day filled with activities that Laufey herself loves and that are tailored to introverted, sensitive people.
And these activities continue online in her official Discord server. Every month, for the Laufey Book Club, her fans all read a book selected by Leve and discuss it in the Discord server.
In honor of Laufey's song Beautiful Strangers, there is a channel in the discord where people post tributes to strangers who they found beautiful, such as, quote, To the beautiful stranger in the suit I saw at the Laufey concert in Manila, you're very handsome and cute. You look like someone I can get along with.
End quote. Basically, Laufey is reimagining what it means to be a star for this particular market by doubling down on the personal qualities, awkward mannerisms, and musical styles that distinguished her as a lonely teenager. As her record label manager said, quote, I hear a lot of artists talk about other artists and ask, what's the blueprint? Laufey doesn't really do that. She always knew that what he was doing was one of one and something that hasn't been done before. And contrary to popular belief, It's not just teen girls who resonate with this. A lot of Laufey's fanbase is actually male. Laufey herself disclosed this in a recent TikTok, and anecdotally, in the course of my own research, I came across a blog post by a middle aged man who's a sophomore engineer and a father.
This man expressed his love for Laufey's music, shared that he had participated in A Very Laufey Day on September 10th, and published his letter that he wrote to his 13 year old self, in which he advised his teenage self to stay nerdy. Laufey seems to have tapped into the universal psyches of chi nerds and tricked them or us all into listening to her jazz music.
I think it's interesting to contrast Laufey and her social media attitude with Mitski, an indie musician who Laufey has collaborated with a few times. Mitski truly seems like a moody artist at heart. And she's been very outspoken about hating being in the public spotlight, wanting to delete her social media, even thinking about leaving the music industry entirely, because she can't put up with all her fans projecting their own feelings onto her work.
Laufey, on the other hand, fully leans into this social media personality. She recognizes that in today's age, as an artist, you are a product, you are a commodity, to be bought adored by your fans. And instead of feeling overwhelmed or wishing constantly to retreat from that to focus on her art, Laufey centers her art and her music around her social media presence.
The starkest example of this, to me, is her song Second Best. To quote Laufey: "This song was actually born out of a TikTok. Somebody made this TikTok last summer that was like, if Levi writes a song about being someone's second choice, like, I'll die or something like that, which I hope they didn't. Because I did write the song. But I was like, oh, challenge accepted."
So, is Laufey selling out by writing music based on what the fans want to hear? I can't imagine Mitski doing that. Does that mean Mitsuki is more artistically pure, more dedicated to her craft? I say no. In my view, the difference is that Mitski merely makes literal music. She pours her heart and soul into her song lyrics, and views her songs as precious outlets for her angst and feelings.
Laufey to me, is an artist in a much more expansive sense of the term. Remember that Laufey spent most of her life studying classical music and music theory, where the goal is more to create a holistically beautiful, complex work of art than necessarily to directly express your raw emotions.
Which is not to say that it can't be deeply emotional in its own way, but the goal is arguably more about holistic, melodic expression.
Now, I'm not an expert in classical music, or art, but it indisputably the case that artists throughout history have recognized that stage performance is an integral part of artistry. For chefs, plating and presentation of the food is a key part of being a good chef. For classical musicians--the renowned pianist, Franz Liszt, all the way back in the 1800s was known for his passionate, expressive stage presence. He would be playing the piano, but his facial expressions and his body language would be so compelling that it would hugely amplify the emotions that were already present in whatever piano piece he was playing.
So if stage presence is a core part of artistry, well, TikTok is a modern day stage. And I do think that the way that Laufey presents herself on TikTok is a form of art. Even the outfits she chooses to wear on TikTok every day are art. I find it very impressive that she and Junia have such a distinct sense of personal style that their fans have started emulating them and dressing in Laufey core outfits.
In my view, the reason that Laufey has been able to sustain for so many years this grueling schedule of non stop daily TikToks, and writing new music, and going on tour, and imagining all these very Laufey days and concert experiences and Discord channels to engage her fans, all seemingly without burning out -- The reason he is able to do that is because all of these things, to her, are part of her art.
My takeaway from all this is that Laufey is a model for the true modern day artist. Social media has expanded and changed so rapidly in the past few years, and it's only going to continue as AI develops further. And it's really broadened the ways that culture changes.
It's broadened the ways that we connect with each other. It's created a whole new class of relationships, in the sense that it's now very common to have parasocial relationships, or feel like , you have friendly relationship with a social media figure who you actually don't know in real life.
To be a rising artist in today's age requires, I think, doing something like Laufey, where you acknowledge that the definition of stage presence has broadened. That being an artist doesn't just mean focusing on one medium; it means creating great art across all these channels that integrate with each other. That this new social media landscape has also presented great opportunities to get people to fall in love with you as a person so strongly that you can even get 13 year olds to listen to jazz -- just because you made it.
I think what's heartening about this is that Laufey manages to establish this deep, multifaceted bond with her audience without spilling really intimate secrets about herself.
She's able to do this just by being raw and bringing in Junia, who she has amazing chemistry with.
Whether you're an aspiring artist, or otherwise, I hope this was inspirational and informative, and I'll see you next time.