Folk-Pop Singer on Hot 100 Hit

Michael Marcagi got here to an settlement of types along with his supervisor in late 2023. The people-pop singer-songwriter had simply completed a recording session in Woodstock, N.Y., and emerged with three songs he felt captured the signature sound he’d been crafting, impressed by Bruce Springsteen in addition to artists like Jim Croce and John Prine.

Marcagi was desirous to launch one tune as a single earlier than the tip of the yr, whereas his supervisor, Alex Brahl, hoped he would ramp up his presence on TikTok — and advocated for a daily quota of posts to extend publicity. “5 instances every week, that was our final deal,” recollects Brahl. “We have been coming from zero, kind of.”

The 2 studied how different artists used the platform to their benefit, and inside weeks, Marcagi launched his solo debut single, the simmering, acoustic guitar-led “The Different Facet,” and had developed a following on the platform. By January, that fandom helped energy his breakout hit and follow-up single, the jangly and extra uptempo “Scared To Begin.”

The next month, “Scared To Begin” scored the artist his first Billboard Scorching 100 entry, reaching a brand new No. 54 excessive on this week’s chart. The tune — which seems on Marcagi’s debut EP American Romance — additionally entered the highest 10 on Scorching Different Songs and Scorching Rock Songs charts and marked Marcagi’s return to Grownup Different Airplay, which he beforehand graced in 2020 and 2021 along with his former folk-rock band The Heavy Hours.

“I knew behind my head that I wished to finally write singer-songwriter music that was narrative-driven and simply speak about what I felt, what I wished to sing about,” says Marcagi, who mentions that The Heavy Hours amicably parted methods a number of years in the past. Nonetheless, the function of frontman primed him for his solo profession — notably amid his viral takeoff. “I wanted these couple years of enjoying exhibits and getting notches in my belt and studying the ropes,” he continues. “The music trade is bizarre. It’s a tough, sort of a lonely, intimidating place to be generally. I wanted the time to get used to it.”

Rising up in Cincinnati, Marcagi was drawn to the manufacturing of “easy folks songs and acoustic guitars,” whereas his midwestern upbringing impressed his lyrics. “I write plenty of songs from that feeling of being from a flyover state,” he says. (His brother and day-to-day supervisor, Andrew Marcagi, provides that their “blue collar roots, surely, have formed Michael’s lyrics and songwriting type.”)

Marcagi is effectively conscious that folk-pop is having fun with a mainstream resurgence, propelled partially by new labelmate Zach Bryan in addition to Noah Kahan, the latter of whom Marcagi is a serious fan. “I feel it’s so superior he’s enjoying for stadiums of individuals which might be screaming about Vermont,” he laughs. “This type of music is working proper now and I’m tremendous grateful that folks linked with [‘Scared To Start’]. It has been this wild little rocket ship the previous couple months.”

Brahl can hint the tune’s takeoff all again to at least one specific TikTok clip by which Marcagi is enjoying guitar in a discipline of lifeless grass over the “Scared To Begin” lyric “let’s lay within the lifeless grass, stare on the stars.” As Brahl recollects, after importing the teaser on December 19, the workforce went out to lunch — and after they got here again, the clip had 10,000 views. “I keep in mind speaking to Michael and being like, ‘What if we get up tomorrow and it has 50,000?’,” he says. “It had 100,000, and it was this utterly natural factor that simply stored going and going.”

Within the days earlier than the vacation break, Brahl despatched the clip round to a handful of labels, and by Christmas Eve, Marcagi and his workforce chosen Warner Data as his label house. He signed his deal the primary week of January, and the next week, “Scared To Begin” was launched as his subsequent single from American Romance, which arrived in early February. “One of many causes we have been so enthusiastic about Warner is that over the vacations we have been getting on the telephone with the digital workforce and planning. We have been shifting very, in a short time,” says Brahl. “We had momentum and I’ve seen it too many instances the place folks don’t make the most of that. We wished to.”

“We have been aggressive out of the gate in attacking the areas we knew would undertake the tune with open arms,” says Will Morrow, Warner’s vp of viral advertising and digital growth. Plus, as senior vp of digital advertising, Dalia Ganz, provides, the digital groups at Warner have been fast to “leverage our deep relationship with TikTok to get elevated visibility for the tune on the platform,” noting that they’re now targeted on driving virality for “Scared To Begin” throughout different shortform platforms like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

With the hit’s success, Warner has one other win and creating star on its roster, becoming a member of the likes of Teddy Swims and Benson Boone, who’ve every loved prime 5 Scorching 100 hits in 2024. “Warner has emerged as a frontrunner within the championing of this new era of singer-songwriters and the return of guitars in pop music, and we recognized Michael as a standout in that house,” says Warner CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck. “He had a set of songs we cherished and felt he actually understood the right way to authentically market and promote himself on-line.” (But, Marcagi is the primary to confess “TikTok is a bizarre, Wild West for me nonetheless.”)

Lately, Marcagi returned to the identical Woodstock studio to work on his debut full-length earlier than heading out on tour. He’s at present overseas — with dates within the U.Ok., Eire, Germany and elsewhere — and in Might will kick off his 23-date U.S. trek in Denver. “It’s been very very similar to, ‘Fast, go!,’ however nonetheless principally natural,” says Brahl, noting there has but to be a serious TV marketing campaign or concerted radio push, nor any specific problem TikTok customers can choose into.

Even so, Marcagi’s mates ship him a photograph every time “Scared To Begin” does play on the radio — which he says is maybe probably the most surreal half up to now. “I keep in mind driving my dad’s automobile and listening to Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers on the radio once I was in highschool,” he recollects. “It’s a bizarre full circle second to be like, ‘I can’t consider that out of the entire artists which might be placing music out, they’re selecting to play my tune.’ It’s actually, actually wild.”

A model of this story will seem within the April 27, 2024, challenge of Billboard.