Who is Tori Kelly? What are her most popular songs?
The American singer-songwriter recently released her new single Missin U (more). She has released four albums on Capitol since her 2015 debut LP, Unbreakable Smile.
Victoria Loren Kelly, Tori Kelly as she is more commonly known, received her first GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist at the 58th GRAMMY Awards. Her debut album, Unbreakable Smile, release by Capitol in June 2015 debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and gave her two Mainstream Top 40 hit singles with Nobody Love, which peaked at No.16 and Should’ve Been Us, which spent 11 weeks in the charts, peaking at 51 in the Billboard Hot 100.
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As well as her own compositions, Tori has also gained acclaim for her cover versions of other artists’ songs - several appear on the Sing soundtracks - the animated films in which she provided the voiceover for Meena, a signing elephant.
We take a look at some of her most popular recordings, self-penned and by others.
“A dangerous plan, just this time. A stranger’s hand clutched in mine...” I Was Made For Loving You is the seventh track on Tori’s debut album Unbreakable Smile. She shares vocals and harmonizes with Ed Sheeran on the three-minute, stripped back acoustic track which to date has been reproduced 265,458,235 times on streaming site, Spotify and 32 million views on Youtube.
Composed in her bedroom on an acoustic guitar, Dear No One was Tori’s third single and her first on Capitol, released in download-only format in 2013. An endearing two-stepper, it is her second most streamed song with 138,032,809 plays since it’s appearance on Spotify nine years ago. A live performance of the song on The Queen Latifah Show and a support slot at Ed Sheeran’s Madison Square Garden show in November 2013 helped to give Tori and her Forward EP exposure and win over a brand new army of fans.
Tori’s cover of Stevie Wonder’s Latin-infused, feelgood Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing from his 1973 perennial classic long player Innervisions has racked up 79,266,127 plays on Spotify. It appeared on the Sing soundtrack in 2016 - another contribution on that album was her version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
Hundreds if not thousands of artists have covered Burt Bacharach’s I Say A Little Prayer - Dionne Warwick was the first to record the song in 1967 but Aretha Franklin’s version for Atlantic a few months later is considered the definitive version of a timeless, soul classic. Tori Kelly’s rendition is up there with the best, backed up by the streaming figures on Spotify - 39,481,033 plays to date.
By her own admission, Tori says Paper Hearts is her own personal favourite track from the Forward EP. She recorded this live version for Vogue while still starting out. It’s got lots of love on Spotify with close to 100,000,000 plays - one of her most reproduced songs on streaming media.
She hooked up with gospel-soul vocalist Kirk Franklin and Christian pop duo KING & COUNTRY to record TOGETHER. Franklin produced and co-wrote several songs on her second album Hiding Place, which hit the shelves in September 2018. Filmed just weeks after the world was rocked by the Covid-19 pandemic and quarantined in their own homes, the TOGETHER video serves as a reminder of a harrowing moment in recent history, of families and loved ones kept apart, solitude and an uncertain future.
Two years after her Christmas album (A Tori Kelly Christmas), she returned with a new single and back to her R’n’B roots this year. Missin U (more) samples the arpeggio lick in Craig David’s Fill Me In and switches gear with a 90s, rolling jungle breakbeat during the bridge. It’s amassed 7,950,134 plays on Spotify since it’s March 2023 release.