Arlo Parks is charting her musical evolution through formative iPod Nano downloads, family record collections, and minimalist songwriting influences ahead of her October concert run. The singer-songwriter’s upcoming UK and Ireland tour launches in Dublin on October 17.
How Early iPod Nano Discoveries and Family Vinyl Shaped Her Sound
A few years later, around age 10 or 11, she bought her first digital download on an iPod Nano: Arctic Monkeys’ Fake Tales of San Francisco.
Reflecting on her early listening milestones, Parks recalled discovering Eurythmics as a young child. She was completely captivated by the opening line of Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
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Strolling through the park with her headphones on, she felt a distinct wave of teenage angst. The gritty tableaux and vivid characters in the lyrics felt remarkably real to her, even though they described a world far distant from her own upbringing.
Her domestic environment offered an equally wide-ranging sonic education. When she was 12 or 13, her uncle let her choose as many records as she could fit into her parents’ vehicle from his personal collection. She grabbed a random assortment of vinyl by Sade, LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash, D’Angelo, and Prince. Meanwhile, her parents maintained a diverse CD library at home. Her father favored jazz greats like Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, and Duke Ellington, while her mother gravitated toward French music alongside Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, and Janet Jackson.
Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens Shape Collapsed in Sunbeams
Discovering the track a few years before writing her album Collapsed in Sunbeams, she found herself drawn to the spacious instrumentation and Thom Yorke’s ethereal delivery. That sparse production aesthetic left a direct mark on her own minimalist approach to songwriting following Radiohead’s House of Cards.
Emotional intensity marks other touchstones in her personal listening rotation. She noted that Sufjan Stevens’ heartbreaking track “Fourth of July” requires caution because it plunges the listener straight into the deep melancholy of grief and loss. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, she embraces universally popular pop songs without hesitation, mentioning that she blasts Lady Gaga’s “Starstruck” shamelessly in her car and knows every word to Jamelia’s bubblegum pop tune “Superstar.”
Arlo Parks Takes Ambiguous Desire on Tour Across the UK and Ireland
With her latest project, Ambiguous Desire, currently available, Parks is preparing to take her music back to live audiences. To kick-start her mornings, she turns to Turnstile’s “I Care” for an open-hearted, driving drumbeat that evokes her teenage years while signaling it is time to brew coffee. For a tear-inducing performance, she points to Portishead’s live version of “Glory Box” recorded at the Roseland Theater, highlighting the raw vulnerability in Beth Gibbons’ voice.
When asked about her hypothetical karaoke choice, she named Prince’s When Doves Cry,
praising the nearly unattainable quality of his vocal execution. For an eventual send-off, she selected the Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning” as the song she wants played at her funeral, noting its soothing blend of melancholy and hopeful warmth.
The singer-songwriter’s concert tour runs from October 17 through October 26, kicking off in Dublin before visiting venues across the UK and Ireland.