Alex Warren‘s career trajectory is anything by “Ordinary.” The rising superstar performed his latest hit on the Love Is Blind season 8 reunion on March 9 — marking the first-ever performance on the popular Netflix series — and the track has seen an impressive boost since the episode.
On Monday (March 10), “Ordinary” was Shazamed 56,000 times, up 306.8% since its release. Single sales spiked from an average of 180 a day to 420 on Sunday (March 9) and 577 the next day. Spotify global streams hit a career peak of 3 million daily on Tuesday (March 11), and the song hit No. 25 on the Spotify Global Chart. “Ordinary” also reached No. 5 on the iTunes Top Songs U.S. chart.
Meanwhile, on the Billboard charts, “Ordinary” jumped from No. 64 to 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart dated March 22. On the Global 200, it jumped from No. 37 to 26.
“Alex is one of the most talented artists that I’m fortunate to work with, but he feels like he’s positioned to become part of the next freshman class of global superstars,” Kevin Weaver, president of Atlantic Records’ West Coast branch, tells Billboard, which is why Warren was the perfect artist in the Atlantic roster to pitch for a Love Is Blind performance.
“I actually pitched the song to [Love Is Blind‘s music supervisor] Jon Ernst before it came out, and I told him it’s going to be a massive record. Fortunately, it all worked out great,” Weaver recalls. “Very early on — I think was actually during the pandemic — I was watching the first or second season of Love Is Blind, and I was just hearing these massive music cues in the show, and it was all library music. Seeing that the show was becoming incredibly popular on Netflix, I had a light bulb moment where I was like, ‘Why isn’t there contemporary music on this hit show that uses music in such an important way?’ How do we help support Jon and the series with with great songs that also benefit our developing artists?”
He added, “With ‘Ordinary,’ it felt like it was a natural fit. I know the background of the song, and Alex wrote the song based on his own personal relationship [with wife Kouvr Annon]. Knowing what the show is, hearing the song, I was like, ‘This is perfect.’”
Michael Parker, Vice President of A&R at Atlantic Records, agrees. “These are the things we always wanted to do,” he tells Billboard. “Now the people know the real Alex, the musician, and now he’s getting those opportunities that we always wanted. We’re getting to do the collabs we always wanted with other artists, and we’re getting to do the shows he’s always wanted to be on. It’s all the things that when you sign an artist and you dream, those are all the things that are on the dream list. And now he’s reached the place where he gets to do all those things.”
He continues, “The beautiful thing about Alex was, you see his social prowess and you see his marketing prowess — but then, you listen to the music. You could take one listen to the music and know he was going to be brilliant, and then you add everything on top of it, it just made him a dream to work with.”
Over on the Love Is Blind side of business, the show’s creator and producer Chris Coelen, music supervisor Ernst and executive producer Ally Simpson were immediately thrilled at the idea of including not only a performance on the show, but also Warren specifically. “We’re just so flattered and privileged to have had Alex and his team want to come and participate. It was amazing to see,” Coelen says, noting that having the performance happen within the on-set pods was particularly fun. “The pods are a really cool, unique, one-of-a kind environment. So, why not actually have a performance there?
Coelen says that Love Is Blind is “just getting started” on incorporating music more in the series. “Music has always been a big part of Love Is Blind. It’s something that we’ve always enjoyed connecting to the action that’s going on in the in the show,” he explains. “We decided that with the fifth anniversary of Love Is Blind and going into this most recent season, that we were going to really go all out and and use commercial music and really be able to spotlight some of the amazing songs that have been out there over the years. Music can be such a mood changer and shifter. It’s incredibly additive to the show, and there’s no going back now.”
Rewatch Warren’s performance of “Ordinary” on Love Is Blind below.
This story originally appeared on Billboard
