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It’s no exaggeration to say that the sea cabins changed Nathan Evans’ life. The 26-year-old postman from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, has become an online phenomenon thanks to the upbeat, upbeat a cappella music.
The sea slums genre has unexpectedly burst into the mainstream, having become something of a global online obsession in recent weeks, primarily driven by the duo feature on the TikTok video sharing app. .
The result is hundreds of versions of popular sea songs with satisfying layers of harmonized vocals, sung by people who have never met – and a boost to a genre that was previously relegated to a niche branch, even novelty, folk music.
Google searches for the term “seaside huts” are at an all-time high in the United States, and Reddit’s sea hut community is currently the ninth fastest growing on the site, having doubled in size from last week.
For Evans, who has been playing music for years, posting songs after finishing his early morning deliveries, it started with a cover of an Irish folk song Leave Her, Johnny, which he shared with a handful of followers on his TikTok account last summer.
“I hadn’t listened to a lot of sea songs, and when this video took off, I realized that people really liked this kind of music, and I found that I liked doing them,” he says. . Six months and millions of likes later, he has over 400,000 TikTok subscribers.
He also appears on radio, television and in articles around the world and has even been praised by American singer-songwriter John Legend.
“It all happened so fast and it was a bit overwhelming,” he said.
Evans, who writes his own music, never imagined his debut EP would be sea songs, but he’s grateful nonetheless.
“They changed my life,” he says. “They opened up so many doors and opportunities that I never would have had without them.”
Arguably the biggest instigator and beneficiary of this trend is Bristol’s group The Longest Johns, who are slum game veterans, formed in 2013.
Jonathan “JD” Darley, Andy Yates, Robbie Sattin and Dave Robinson have spent the best part of the past decade performing sea songs at festivals across the UK and have attracted a moderate fan base.
But in late 2020, after the Longest Johns allowed Twitch streamers to use their music for free in the background of their streams, one song in particular exploded.
The Wellerman, a slum from New Zealand, is currently No. 5 in the world and No. 2 in the United States on the Spotify viral map, a list that takes into account streams and shares. Even more impressive, Wednesday’s version of The Wellerman from The Longest Johns entered Spotify’s top 200 most listened to songs in the United States.
This success came in waves, they said, peaking in popularity in the summer, then in October, and then again in December. “And then it has now happened and each got bigger and bigger and bigger than the one before as more and more people start to recognize and connect with the song,” Darley said.
“It’s like this crazy spiral of growth that we see.”
Promise Uzowulu, a 23-year-old nursing student from Houston, Texas who uses the pseudonym TikTok @strong_promises, is partly responsible for this recent wave.
Her 43-second video, singing The Wellerman’s version of The Longest Johns in the car with his 21-year-old brother Frank, traces the heartfelt emotional trajectory familiar to new slum fans and has had tens of millions of views.
Uzowulu said: “He put it on and I was skeptical at first because he plays weird music. But to my surprise, I really liked the song. I asked him to play it on a loop until I learned the chorus.
“The video shows the honest progression from skepticism to full-fledged pleasure.”
The Longest Johns attributes this to the genre’s simplicity and accessibility. Sattin said: “I would compare that to soccer chants. It doesn’t matter if you’re in tune or not. “
The Wellerman himself may also have a unique appeal during the pandemic, as the song is about waiting for a ship to bring supplies on a seemingly endless whaling hunt. (Soon the Wellerman will come / To bring us sugar, tea and rum / Someday when the tonguin is over / We will take our time off and go.)
“These are people stuck in a bad situation hoping for better. Something about it seems to resonate with people, ”Robinson said.
Yates added, “Or maybe they just need a food delivery.”
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