Elliot James Reay: His Rise to Fame and Debut EP
Written by Ishika Dhawan
From TikTok covers to charting hits, Elliot James Reay is quickly becoming a name to know. The 23-year-old British singer-songwriter doesn’t just write music; he curates an experience.
Reay first rose to fame after posting covers and original music on TikTok. People were captivated by the raw emotion in his voice and his choice of love songs. His debut single, “I Think They Call This Love,” has received over 115 million streams on Spotify alone. Ahead of the release of his new EP, All This To Say I Love You, I had the opportunity to speak with the emerging artist in a press conference through Universal Music Group’s °1824.
When asked which tracks he’s most excited for fans to hear, Reay highlighted “Sweetness” and “Daydreaming.” “Sweetness is one that I’ve been excited for. I feel like it has a lot of the components of a song that I would listen to,” he said. But beyond the sound, Reay emphasized the importance of listener interpretation: “I want people to experience things in their own way and interpret this EP however they feel… Sometimes when you make it specific, you lose a lot of people’s interest who maybe can’t relate.”
He approaches his creative process with that same open mindset. Reay credits “I Think They Call This Love” as a defining moment in his career. “It was one of them things where I already had a lot of things written,” he explained. “Some things didn’t work out the way I wanted, and that forced me to change the hand of the card I was playing.” Reay explains, “I just want people to be able to get lost in the music and enjoy the song in the way that I do.”
The song had been written months earlier and was shelved away until a moment of clarity changed everything. “We had [the song] sitting in front of us for a good 3–4 months. We overlooked it, couldn’t figure out what the first single should be, and then said, ‘Hang on, what about this one?’” That track would go on to gain traction on TikTok and become a catalyst for Reay’s career. “That was the moment things really changed,” he said. “We knew this was what we needed to do.”
Now that All This To Say I Love You is out, Reay invites listeners to embrace their own interpretations of his music. My personal favorite from the EP has to be “Who Knew Dancing Was a Sin.” To me, the song feels like being immersed in a club in the 1900s. Overall, I absolutely adore All This To Say I Love You and think it truly is a dreamy love album. It’s full of emotion and crafted to be experienced differently by everyone who presses play.