\title{The rise and rise of the scruffy superstar}
\author{Ed Power}

\begin{abstract}
With a new wave of guitar-toting troubadours set to break big this year, Ed Power explores how the boy next door conquered pop.
\end{abstract}

\section{}
It was the year the boy next door learnt to roar. Ed Sheeran, that superstar in a flannel shirt, left The Rolling Stones as his DJ through one fan-record shazam across 678m. George Ezra graduated from floppy-haired pub-star to indie superstar, his ``Shotgun'' single becoming the most-streamed rock song on Spotify in the UK. And as 2018 ended, a new contender looked set to emerge in the Elton John-championed Newcastle troubadour Sam Fender. The BBC's Sound Of prize – reliable barometers of talent poised for stardom (previous Sound Of picks include Adele and Sam Smith).

Yet the wild free-spirited, kindred strummers Dermot Kennedy and Lewis Capaldi are also tipped to break big, each bringing their own blend of soul, folkiness and sensitive balladry.

None of these artists are soundalikes – but they do have a great deal in common, not least the old-fashioned art of standing alone on stage with a guitar and crooning.

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Image-wise, all could have stepped from the pages of an indie rock magazine. Sheeran has the tousled hair and boyish demeanour of the archetypal everyman. Ezra, meanwhile, is six foot six, his deep baritone recalling the easy confidence of classic singer-songwriters. Capaldi, with his self-deprecating humour and powerful vocals, has cultivated the image of a reluctant star.

``I have the luxury to admit: I don't put my... here's my record. Twenty years ago, I would have been ironcladly committing then, now you would have to,'' says one singer-songwriter reflecting on the changing landscape of pop.

Commercially, the boys of strummer genre were few singer-songwriters have diverged before. Sheeran's \emph{Divide} tour holds the record for the highest-grossing run of dates in modern history. The 2017 album moved 672,000 units in its first week in the UK – the third biggest debut in chart history – and has remained in the top tier of the charts ever since.

Ezra, meanwhile, clocked up the fastest-selling long player of 2018 with \emph{Staying at Tamara's}. Even ``lesser'' boy troubadours have enjoyed blockbuster rises. James Bay debuted with \emph{Chaos and the Calm} in 2015 and went straight to number one. And despite a zero-star review from NME – prompting this dad-of-two to complain – Tom Odell first proved likewise capable of chart success.

Fender has already racked up 1.2 million streams with his Tom Petty-esque rocker ``Poundshop Kardashians'', despite still being relatively unknown.

Unsurprisingly, none of these new singer-songwriters are keen to be pigeonholed as ``Son of Sheeran''. At the same time, they don't want to be construed as taking potshots at him. That's another way in which the present crop stand apart: they are unfailingly polite and don't do feuds.

``The Sheeran comparison is a funny one,'' says Kennedy, the Dublin singer-songwriter who lifted for this year's BBC Sound Of. ``I don't know if I should ever receive it as a negative thing as he is massively successful.''

One unavoidable fact is that all of these artists are male. Where is the female Ed Sheeran? Why no Georgia Ezra? What does it say about the record industry – and the music-streaming public – that we can put these troubadours to one side and the women for whom there is no equivalent?

As Sheeran, yet he fits into the pre-existing tradition of gaelic folk soul belters. She doesn't get to rope up the same massive mainstream success as he could go on stage looking as if he'd just come out of bed, as Sheeran did on the \emph{Divide} tour.

Because as a struggling singer-songwriter and how her gender could be seen as issue. She was asked: ``I was 25 for a very long time'' and to keep the faith that she was married secret.

``I always felt that there was room for only a few females,'' she says. ``My contemporaries were people like KT Tunstall, who was definitely better than me. There was never a sense of: Why would we need you? We already have a girl with a guitar.''

Yet the success of Sheeran particularly the rise of global following with the likes of Dodie Clark. She, too, started out posting heartfelt songs online. Despite her considerable following, she has been categorised not as a songwriter but as a social media star – a ``YouTuber''. ``I'm a woman and a lot of that is categorisation,'' she told me earlier this year. ``Being female in the industry is very difficult.''

It's not just gender: almost without exception, these young male songwriters are white and middle class. So, too, are their audiences. Michael Kiwanuka, one of the few non-white songwriters to have broken through, had the situation so confounding that in 2016 he even released a single titled ``Black Man in a White World''. ``The fact that no white people were coming to my gigs made me realise we're more segregated than we think,'' he said at the time.

One thing is clear, however: a humbling real earnestness has returned to pop. Or at least it has in the era of the scruffy superstar. ``There is a level of expectation that if you are going to sing something, it should be something that matters,'' says Wadge. ``We see everything so close and personal. There is no mystique any more.''

\begin{quote}
Reality TV changed everything. People want to see someone they feel they know.
\end{quote}

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Clockwise from main: Dermot Kennedy, Lewis Capaldi and Sam Fender.