Album of the Day — August 3
Kimbra — Vows
03.August.2020
Kimbra
Vows
2011
You may recognize Kimbra’s name and voice from “Somebody That I Used to Know,” the 2012 Grammy- winning song by Gotye — making Kimbra only one of three singers from New Zealand to win a Grammy Award.
That’s right, Kimbra (Kimbra Lee Johnson) is from New Zealand. Not typically a country that’s known for being a hot-bed of music.
Her influences are as varied as you may expect — Prince, Minnie Riperton, Jeff Buckley, and Bjork — but Kimbra is so uniquely her own thing that if you never knew those influences, you wouldn’t hear them.
Kimbra borrowed from the Taylor Swift playbook, being ten years old and doing the National anthem thing at sporting events. But it being New Zealand and all, the sporting events were typically Rugby, and the anthem was New Zealand’s.
In 2007, she won a Juice TV award (think MTV but in New Zealand) for Best Breakthrough music video for her song “Simply on My Lips.” The song was successful enough that it brought her onto new Forum 5 label boss and manager Mark Richardson’s radar, who quickly signed her to a deal.
After struggling to complete the song, her first single “Settle Down” was…
