In 2015, rising Disney Channel star Sabrina Carpenter released her debut album, Eyes Wide Open. A decade and five albums later, she was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2025 Grammys (she lost to Chappell Roan). Was this a case of category fraud, something that is typically associated with the Oscars (especially this year)? Not according to Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. “For me, what it comes down to is when an artist rises to national or international prominence,” he told The Hollywood Reporter about Best New Artist eligibility. “It could be their first record, it could be their sixth record.”
In other words, “Espresso” happened.
Then, along with “Please Please Please” and “Taste” came the Grammy nominations, the sold-out tour, the holiday special, the SNL anniversary cameos, and the Dunkin commercial. It’s a meteoric, well-deserved rise from the third line of the 2024 Coachella poster to festival headliner, but now that it’s 2025, I wonder: who is this year’s Sabrina Carpenter?
Let me make the case for Jade.
To a lot of (mostly British) people reading this, Jade Thirlwall — who goes by Jade as a solo artist — needs no introduction. She was a member of Little Mix, one of the top-selling girl groups of all-time, along with the original The X Factor-formed lineup of Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Perrie Edwards, and Jesy Nelson.
They had five No. 1 hits in the UK between 2011 and 2021, and over a dozen other tracks that peaked in the top 10. But Little Mix’s two most popular songs, “Wings” and “Black Magic,” stalled at No. 79 and No. 67 in the United States, respectively. They’re part of a long, proud lineage of British acts that America never fully embraced, for one reason or another — the girl group Robbie Williams, so to speak (where’s the Better Man-style biopic?).
In 2022, the same year that Little Mix went on hiatus, Thirlwall signed a solo record deal with RCA Records. Two years later came one of the best debut singles I’ve ever heard in recent memory. The ever-shifting “Angel Of My Dreams” is ambitious, addictive, and the kind of song that should be an “Espresso”-level hit. If you don’t feel something in the soaring final 30 seconds, you should go see a doctor for that. Unfortunately, “Angel Of My Dreams” never even charted in the United States. Neither did her follow-up singles, the disco-influenced “Fantasy” and the club-ready “It Girl.”
But although chart success in the US has thus far eluded Jade, there are two things to remember:
1. She hasn’t even released her debut solo album yet; that’s almost certainly coming later this year.
2. She’s making the kind of music she wants to make.
“I’m a bit of a dark horse. I’ll try anything once,” Jade told Rolling Stone UK. Later on, she said, “I like never feeling safe with a song.” From another interview, this one talking about her forthcoming album with Junkee: “The vibes I think is a bit of chaos. I wanted people to be let in on my brain and my creative journey of finding out who I am [and] what music I want to make. I think the music actually reflects that [it’s] kind of a surprise with each song.”
I mentioned Sabrina Carpenter earlier, but maybe Charli XCX is the better comparison (and not only because it’s surprising Jade got to selling a butt plug before Charli). Those in the know knew she was a pop genius long before Brat; Number 1 Angel and Pop 2, in particular, came out nearly 10 years ago, and they still sound like the future. So why was Brat word-of-the-year (and album-of-the-year) big when the equally-great How I’m Feeling Now stalled at No. 111 on the Billboard 200? As Twiggy Rowley, a member of Charli’s management team, explained it, “She’s always operated three steps ahead. The only change is that people are now catching on.”
My fellow Americans, let’s not make the same mistake with Jade. Don’t wait to catch on until it’s “cool” to celebrate her — start now. Artists who make songs as exhilarating as “Angel Of My Dreams” deserve to be celebrated, not lost in the algorithm void. Jade can be the 2025 pop star of your dreams.
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