As album number seven A Wonderful Life approaches, Tom Odell isn’t looking to chase the numbers, or meet any industry expectations. He’s following the music. “I didn’t get into this to be big,” he says. “I got into it because I love it. And I still do.”

SEASON 12, EP 5: TOM ODELL CHEERS UP (a bit), WITH WONDERFUL RESULTS

Now well over a decade in the music industry, Tom Odell is motoring through a successful second phase as an independent artist. His recent albums have leaned into more introspective, personal material that has resonated so much that he now attracts bigger audiences to bigger shows (an arena tour is forthcoming), and continues to grow a very large base of listeners on the streaming platforms. 

Indeed, he sits comfortably (and ironically) within Spotify’s elite of Top 200 streaming artists. He is in the 0.01% of working artists, the “Billions Club”, a place he never set out to be but nevertheless, belongs. Odell broke free of the major label system (not his choice at the time but transformational as it turned out) three albums ago, to find a whole new level of creative and commercial success. Most of all, with his seventh studio album A Wonderful Life on the horizon (and off the back of supporting Billie Eilish on tour), the singer-songwriter has found a renewed sense of purpose. This creative renaissance didn’t come without a struggle of course. 

“I remember thinking, sitting there at lunch, when I found out Columbia didn’t want to work with me anymore, this can either be the end or the beginning of something new,” Odell recalls. “And I chose to turn that frustration into something wonderful.”

Like so many other artists (listen to The Art of Longevity archive!), Odell was dropped without ceremony - or even a note of thanks. No chat, phone call or text, either. Just a message passed on through his manager. Typical, but when it happens to you, devastating. 

The doubled-edged sword of major label life though, is that Odell’s career began with a bang. His debut album Long Way Down (2013) sent him up in the rocket ship. But success came with a price. The proverbial major label Faustian pact. “I was deeply uncomfortable in those days,” he admits. “There was just a profound lack of respect for art and for music. I almost shudder when I think about it.”

Rather than retreat, Tom leaned into the uncertainty. “I rented this little studio, just upstairs at a place a half-hour walk from my house. I bought a piano and decided to make a record with nothing else, just voice and piano.” That record was Best Day of My Life, a sparse and emotionally raw album that marked a clear turning point. It was Odell’s Kid A moment, an uncompromised record that gained him more fans than he lost, if indeed he lost anyone. “It was the first time I made something completely for myself. And the irony is, people really liked it.”

Odell now runs his independent label (via a WhatsApp group) and wastes no more precious time or energy trying to convince anyone what he should or should not do next, instead he just cracks on with it. “The time I used to spend convincing Sony to let me put something out, I now just spend doing it. And it’s completely led by the art.”

At this point in our conversation, it feels like Tom Odell is the perfect Art of Longevity subject, having experienced every twist and turn of the music industry rollercoaster, the perfect “Brett’s Curve” - in a relatively short amount of time. He could write the book, if he wasn’t so busy writing his morning pages and crafting lyrics for new song ideas. 

I’m delighted to report that the results of this autonomy are evident on A Wonderful Life. Odell describes the album as a “documentation of someone trying to feel better and to get better.” The album was recorded live with his long-time band, many of whom have been with him for over a decade. 

Stand out tracks on the album include “Can We Just Go Home Now?” an indie rock song complete with gnarly guitar solo. A certain Jeff Buckley comes to mind. The title track “A Wonderful Life” stood out as my immediate favourite from the melody alone, to which Odell pins the simplest of conversational lyrics - the result is genuinely uplifting. The album's closer, “The End of Suffering,” might be the best thing he’s done yet. Combining shades of Gilbert O’Sullivan with Radiohead (a first), it captures Odell’s newly found perspective. “It’s that moment of meeting my younger self,” he says. “At the end of suffering, there’s a door, there is everything, there is nothing. And there is everything and more.” That is very much the Odell modus operandi throughout the album. 

Odell is developing into something of a raconteur too, happy to delve into any topic and relishing our conversation about the wider aspects of change across the music business and the shifting cultural landscape. We bonded over a healthy scepticism of the tech-driven world in which music now lives, but cautious optimism about the health of creativity and even faith in the listener. 

“I feel like music’s value is rising, culturally. Music feels more a part of people’s lives than ever. Gigs are full, vinyl is back, albums are meaningful again,” he says. “I think the value of music has gone up. The value of the individual song has maybe gone down but the album is back.”

His time touring with artists like Billie Eilish and the Lumineers has given him a first-hand glimpse of the very top tier of success in a changed industry, a secret sauce that may well rub off on him more as a result of those experiences. Odell is a hopeful soul. In a world of quantity over quality, 100,000 songs a day and AI about to increase that number ad infinitum, he has a strong idea about where a solution may lie to all the madness. “I really have faith in the listener,” he says. “I believe people will find the good stuff. And when I look at what’s big right now, most of the time I go, ‘Yeah, that’s really good, that’s why it's big”. 

As A Wonderful Life gets closer to release, Odell isn’t looking to chase the numbers, or meet any industry expectations. He’s following the music. “I didn’t get into this to be big,” he says. “I got into it because I love it. And I still do.”

His Spotify biog says it all. No flowery press copy, no AI generated summary, no self-penned promo, just 33 million monthly listeners and a simple keyboard smile emoji. 

One wonders how far he will go. It’s entirely possible that at this stage of his career, he’s perfectly confident in his own theory, that the good will out, applying to his latest body of work. He’s probably right. There’s something about Tom Odell - a self awareness and sense of perspective - that keeps him in touch with where he is now and how the pattern of his life and career is developing. His new found optimism, less worried attitude and dare we say, more cheerful self may just power him into phase three. 

:)

A Wonderful Life is released September 5, Tom is on tour soon, details here