Alex Warren Is Kindly and Earnest Enough to Make You Root For Him

Alex Warren had last year’s biggest hit single with “Ordinary,” a song whose title was a cleverly unflamboyant statement of principle. The 25-year-old California singer-songwriter staked out his turf by taking pride in the ordinariness of his hit, from the mild-mannered vocals to the drama-free sincerity of his romantic imagery. As he declared in his credo of a hook, “We’ll make the mundane our masterpiece.” It was a song that dared you to roll your eyes at it, but then made it feel stupid and obvious to do so. Not a bad trick.

But more to the point, it was a song that dared to go for earnestly open-hearted romance, with Warren wisely refusing to outsmart himself, resisting any urge to throw in any fancy plot twists or angles. The ordinariness of it was the whole point — which is how it built up into the monster universal hit it became. That’s why “Ordinary” is going to be a wedding song until your grandkids are getting divorced.

Wildchild is another clever title — on the surface, it’s pretty much the opposite of what anyone would expect from Warren in terms of his vocal personality. But there’s plenty of emotional turbulence in his life story, and he isn’t shy about digging deeper into that on his second album. He’s inspired by the death of his father, who gave him the nickname “Wildchild” growing up, and by marrying the love of his life. “I’m a two-trick pony,” he likes to joke onstage. “I write songs about my dead parents, and I write songs about my wife.”