Examining the Suspicious Success of a New Pop Star

In the 21st century, it’s not uncommon for an artist to reach legendary status in a length of time so short, it probably has 1950s music legends rolling in their graves. Artists like Sabrina Carpenter, who became one of the biggest pop sensations over the course of roughly one year, or Chappell Roan, who did just the same in closer to six months.

Artists who take their time working their way up seem to be fewer and further between in 2025, at least those artists who break into the mainstream with Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers; the biggest hit-makers of today all seem to have been smaller artists with rather small followings as of yesterday.

One artist who quite literally went from zero to 100 in what felt like just 24 hours is New York City native, Sombr. He released his debut album in August, and won a VMA just two weeks later. He has nearly 59 million monthly listeners on Spotify—about 20 million more than Chappell Roan, and about three million more than Beyoncé, which begs the question, where the f**k l did this guy come from?

Were We Supposed To Pretend We Knew Who Sombr Was?

One day this summer, I came across a post on an Instagram account called NYCForFree advertising a free pop-up concert for an artist I’d never heard of on the Lower East Side. Because there are thousands of record dealless small artists in New York City, I didn’t think anything of it, and I went about my day.

Not long after, I saw an article in Rolling Stone about an artist named Sombr who had just announced his debut album. I almost repeated the process of not thinking anything of it, and continuing to go about my day, but something gave me pause; this time I recognized the name.

After that, I started seeing his name pop up all over the place, never from individual people, but from big music outlets and news venues leading up to the album’s release and the VMAs. Three days after the VMAs, I posted an Instagram poll asking whether people had heard of Sombr before two weeks ago. 70 out of 151 people said they had still never heard of him.

His Debut Album Isn’t Actually Half Bad

First and foremost, it is not lost on me that Sombr’s artist overview and his debut album listing on Spotify are nearly identical. There are a few songs listed in his ten most-streamed tracks that do not appear on I Barely Know Her, but for the most part, these two lists of ten songs are extremely similar.

Upon listening to the album from start to finish, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I actually kind of liked it. Granted, it is a very backloaded album. After “crushing,” which is a solid opener, the record takes a bit of a downturn in quality, with “12 to 12,” “i wish i knew how to quit you,” and “back to friends,” which are all either overproduced, monotonously boring, or some combination of the two.

Now, it is to be expected that any artist’s debut album will have some lulls. It’s pretty rare that a debut is a flawless album with no skips whatsoever, and Sombr’s debut is no different. There are some great tracks here, namely “canal street” and “under the mat,” which both feature some pretty raw emotion and just the right levels of alternative pop production.

The Suspicion Behind His Rise To Fame Has Only Grown

Looking at Sombr’s top songs on Spotify, two of his top three are from his album’s weakest point. On the flip side, the album’s slow-building explosion of a closer and doubtlessly one of the best songs of the ten on I Barely Know Her, appears nowhere in his top ten most-streamed tracks.

What’s more, I was completely unfamiliar with all 10 songs prior to listening to the album, and coincidentally, in the time since he released his album, I’ve spent more time listening to the radio than I have in the last four or five years. Something felt off; for an artist with more monthly listeners than Beyoncé, his number one song (at the very least!) should be familiar to the masses, right?

Sombr is a talented artist, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about the prospect of a sophomore album. I would also be lying if I said I thought Sombr blew up entirely on his own merit as an artist. The truth is, with so many people accusing Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter of being “industry plants,” not enough people are saying the same of Sombr.

There are tens of thousands of small artists across the globe who are putting in 100% of their time, finances, and energy into “making it.” Any musician with a dream and the talent to make it happen should be able to do exactly that, but Sombr did in just a couple of weeks what takes some upwards of five years to achieve.

It seems to me, as evidenced by the overproduction in his debut, the mysteriously-originated 60 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and the disconnect between top-streamed songs and highest-quality songs, that his record label and the industry at large pooled their resources to make us simply believe and accept that Sombr is the next greatest pop star, even before hearing him sing his first note.