Music

Shamir’s big week: Kudos abound for Vegas’ new pop wunderkind

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Shamir
Matthew Parri Thomas

May 19 might have been the biggest day of Shamir Bailey’s life. The heavily hyped singer-songwriter revealed the date of his first solo hometown performance when Life Is Beautiful shared its 2015 lineup, and released his debut album Ratchet to widespread praise, with review aggregator Metacritic rating it at 79, two points shy of the site’s “universal acclaim” zone.

Pitchfork, arguably the most relevant music blog on the Internet, labeled Ratchet with its Best New Music designation. The Guardian’s U.S. edition, Stereogum and Spin called it the best album of the week, the latter also declaring it the “year’s best debut.” Shamir graced the cover of The Irish Times, scored an artist-to-watch piece on Nylon and his second New York Times piece this month, along with seeing his single “Call It Off” awarded “best song of the week” honors by Vanity Fair.

The kudos continued through the week, but Shamir seemed most ecstatic on Friday, when he breathlessly tweeted a photo of record-shop destination Amoeba Music with, “OMFG my album is on top of my favorite store in LA.” Now that his likeness looms over both Hollywood and Times Square, we can safely say Shamir has truly made it.

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