New York — Shaked up the winter, came to life in the spring, dominated the summer and went triple platinum in the fall. Alex Warren's bombastic ballad “Ordinary” is in many ways the defining song of 2025. It's also an unusual hit: slower than the traditional song of the summer, full of sparkle, a rising chorus and innocuous, religiously relatable lyricism.
For these reasons, “Ordinary” quickly catapulted the 25-year-old singer-songwriter to mainstream musical stardom, culminating in November when he earned his first Grammy nomination. Nomination for best new artist arrived just four months after the release of his debut album, You'll Be Alright, Kid.
“I was bawling in my wife's arms,” he said of the moment he learned of the nomination. For those who didn't believe in his music career, he says, “the biggest vindication ever.” there was a nomination.”
Most people know Warren from Ordinary, but fame is nothing new to him. Before the chart-topping hit, Warren made a name for himself as a social media prankster in the TikTok collective Hype House. And while that past may seem at odds with his new public image, Warren has always had a shrewd streak, the result of a difficult childhood that separated him from his comedy group. According to him, his father died of cancer when he was 9 years old, and his mother died of complications caused by alcoholism. In adolescence, before Fame on TikTok.
However, he remained curious and playful. At the Associated Press headquarters in New York, he chatted with staffers and made disarming, self-deprecating comments. Example: Getting ready to watch singer Shawn Mendes later he poured himself some cologne. “I need to smell as good as Shawn Mendes looks,” he joked.
Success on social media doesn't always lead to a creative career – remember Warren and innovative Addison Raea Best New Artist nominee, the exception to the rule, but it really prepared him for the life he leads now. “Everything I went through back then definitely allowed me to do it,” he says.
Growing up online—and having “different versions” of myself on social media—has “definitely allowed me to be uniquely myself now,” he says.
Warren wrote “Ordinary” a year ago at a writing camp. He says he knew there was something special about the track, even though he and his bandmates were largely alone in that feeling. “A lot of people said, 'Oh, it's a ballad, it's a ballad about a love song. It's not a single, it's a song on the album. It's a feature, you have to give it to someone else,” he recalls. But he posted it on TikTok and it soon connected.
“TikToks allowed 4 million streams a day, it was crazy,” he said. He then performed it on “Love is Blind” from Netflix. He played it with Ed Sheeran,Jelly Roll, Luke Combs and the Jonas Brothers. It has become ubiquitous.
The song is connected, he believes, not just because of its anthemic chorus. He said the song has “hope, but also an urgency” that some listeners compare to sensitivity. Christian music. And while it's not worship music, “we took a lot of inspiration from it,” he says of its composition.
This spirit permeates his debut album, You'll Be Alright, Kid. Warren returns to the record often and learns more about himself with each listen. “To me, these songs are just real, and I hope people listen to this record and learn something about themselves,” he says. “That's the most important thing. That was for me. It was that I learned who I was and who I wanted to be as a husband, as a friend, as a father, and that's what I got from it. And I hope somebody gets something else from it, you know?”
But for now, he's enjoying the ride that “Ordinary” and its success have provided.
“How often does someone find themselves in this position?” he asks. “This is a unique opportunity to take advantage of a cool moment that I've had, and I hope it continues. And I hope my songs continue to do well and I can still write about the things that are going on in my life. And if not, at least I can say that I took full advantage of everything.”
And in February he will take him to Grammy.
___
The 68th Grammy Awards will take place on February 1, 2026 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The show will air on CBS and Paramount+. For more information visit https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.
