Becky Hill

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For the Australian comedian, see Bec Hill.

Becky Hill
Hill performing at Manchester Pride 2019
Hill performing at Manchester Pride 2019
Background information
Birth nameRebecca Claire Hill
Born (1994-02-14) 14 February 1994 (age 27)[1]
Bewdley, Worcestershire, England[2]
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Singer
  • songwriter
InstrumentsVocals
Years active2012–present
Labels
Associated acts

Rebecca Claire Hill (born 14 February 1994)[1] is a British singer and songwriter from Bewdley.[2] She rose to prominence after appearing on the first series of The Voice UK, auditioning with John Legend's "Ordinary People". She joined Jessie J's team and reached the semi-final of the competition. On 29 June 2014 she became the first (and only thus far) The Voice UK contestant to score a UK number 1 when the song, "Gecko (Overdrive)" with Oliver Heldens topped the UK Singles Chart.[3][4]

Early and personal life[]

Hill's mother is Susan Hill, of English and Welsh descent. Her father is Stephen Hill, of English ancestry. Becky Hill began making music at the age of 14 and started performing in a band called Shaking Trees – receiving BBC Introducing support from Andrew Marston at BBC Hereford & Worcester who selected her band to perform at the Nozstock Festival of Performing Arts,[5] as well as a live session for Adam Green and Josh Withey at BBC Radio Shropshire.[6] Hill is a supporter of Walsall F.C.[7] In April 2021, she came out as queer on her Twitter account, stating "I've definitely felt uncomfortable branding myself as straight, or anything else for that matter, but queer seems to be the most fitting identity for who I am".[8]

Career[]

2012: The Voice[]

Main article: The Voice UK (series 1)

Hill has appeared in a number of live performances for YouTube, including a web series called The Rebelations. She auditioned for the first series of The Voice UK, and at the blind auditions she performed "Ordinary People". Judges Jessie J and Will.i.am turned around for her, the only coaches with an available space on their teams. She opted to join Jessie. In the battle rounds she competed against Indie and Pixie performing the song "Irreplaceable", she won the battle and progressed to the live shows. She got to the Semi-final stage of the competition where she was eliminated.

2013–2017: Breakthrough and Eko EP[]

Since appearing on The Voice UK, versions of David Guetta's "She Wolf" and "Not Giving In" by Rudimental have been published, as have covers of Paolo Nutini's "Last Request" and Alex Clare's "Too Close". Hill featured on Rudimental's track "Powerless", taken from their debut album Home. She also provided cover for Ella Eyre's vocals for Rudimental's set at Glastonbury 2013, Bestival 2013, Wakestock 2013 and Lovebox 2013. Hill provided vocals for and co-wrote Wilkinson's song Afterglow,[9][10] which peaked at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart in October 2013,[11] the song also peaked at number 1 on the UK Dance Chart. "Powerless" received a full single release on 23 February 2014. The song peaked at number 73 on the UK Singles Chart. Hill appeared on and co-wrote a vocal version of Oliver Heldens' "Gecko", renamed "Gecko (Overdrive)", alongside MNEK. The song topped the UK Singles Chart on 29 June 2014 thus making her the first The Voice UK contestant to achieve a number 1.[12]

On 9 November 2014 she released a single, "Losing", which was produced by MNEK and intended to be the lead single from her solo album with then label Parlophone Records. The single debuted at number 56 on the UK Singles Chart.[13] Hill co-wrote Australian recording artist Reigan Derry's debut single "All of the Pieces".[14] In July 2015, French house producer Watermät released a vocal version of his track "Frequency" with Hill as joint lead artist. The track was renamed to "All My Love".[3]

In early 2016, she announced that she was songwriting with pop sensation CocknBullKid. In May 2016 she released her first proper single in two years, entitled "Back to My Love", featuring vocals from rapper Little Simz. It was said to be the lead single off of her debut album, but was later included in the Eko EP, released in August 2017. During the summer, she collaborated with a number of artists. Her first was with DJ and record producer MK on his single "Piece of Me". The second was with Matoma on his breakthrough single "False Alarm". In the late months of 2016, she announced a second single from her EP, entitled "Warm". It was co-written with MNEK and produced by Shift K3Y. In the end of March 2017, she released a third single, entitled "Rude Love". The song was co-written and produced by MNEK. The music video was released in April and sparked the launch of her official VEVO channel on YouTube.

In May 2017, Hill signed a worldwide publishing deal with Sony/ATV and also guest presented an episode of CBBC's The Playlist. Following from this, Hill released a fourth single "Unpredictable" from the Eko EP, along with the EP itself in August 2017 as the final release from her own independent label Eko Music Limited.[15] "Unpredictable" was co-written by Karen Poole and MNEK, who is also responsible for production.

2017–2019: Get to Know[]

Hill announced in August 2017 that she had signed a worldwide record deal with Polydor Records and expected to release her debut album in 2019. Upon signing her record deal, manager Alex Martin was quoted saying "Becky is at an incredibly exciting stage in her career. The public have only seen a small amount of Becky as a solo artist and what she can do and we were looking for the right partner to work with to take that further".[15] Since signed to the label, she has been working on her debut album. Her working affiliate MNEK has been said to have worked with her on a lot of new material and is said to be the executive producer for the album.

In 2018, she released the single "Sunrise in the East", which was treated as the lead cut from her supposedly rejuvenated debut project.[16] Not long after, she took part in a range of collaborations, including the song "Back & Forth", alongside Marc Kinchen and Jonas Blue. This continued in the following year with "I Could Get Used to This", with Weiss, and finally "Wish You Well", with Sigala, which became her first top 10 hit in the UK Charts since "Gecko (Overdrive)". Additionally, she also achieved success as a songwriter when she wrote the song "All Day and Night" by Jax Jones, Martin Solveig and Madison Beer, which was her first written effort to make it to the top 10 in the UK Charts. On 6 July 2019, Hill performed at Pride in London on the Trafalgar Square stage.

On 24 September 2019, Hill announced on social media that she was going to be releasing a "mini-album" that Friday, which had previous hits and four brand new tracks.[17] These four tracks were previously planned on being released on their own as an extended play, entitled Fickle Emotions, but the idea was scrapped before including them on a compilation album.[18] The album, under the title Get to Know, was released on 27 September 2019.

On 6 December 2019, Hill released a cover of the Yazoo song, "Only You", dedicated to her grandfather, who had introduced her to The Flying Pickets' cover version of the song when she was young.[19]

2020–present: Only Honest on the Weekend[]

At the beginning of 2020, she supported Irish pop rock band The Script on their Sunsets & Full Moons tour in the UK and Ireland and performed some of her songs from Get to Know. In late March of that year, the rest of the dates were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She released the next singles from her debut album Only Honest on the Weekend; "Better Off Without You" with Shift K3Y and "Heaven on My Mind" with Sigala, both of which reached number fourteen on the UK Singles Chart. Follow up single "Space" peaked at seventy-nine, though this later did not make the final tracklist.[20]

In April, she collaborated with Tiesto on the song "Nothing Really Matters" which was later released through Tiesto's seventh album The London Sessions, where she featured on another song called "Over You". In June, she premiered her new Spotify podcast set up entirely by Hill called "The Art of Rave" with features such as Pete Tong, Sister Bliss and DJ Zinc.

In November, she covered Alphaville's "Forever Young" for the UK's McDonald's Christmas advert,[21] which became her first solo song (that is, one without a joint credit) to reach the UK Top 40, when it peaked at number thirty-five.[22]

Beginning in 2021, Hill released the singles "Last Time" and "Remember" with French DJ David Guetta, they peaked at number thirty-nine and number three respectively, the latter becoming Hill's fourth top-ten hit.

On 15 July 2021, Hill teased the release of her debut album, Only Honest on the Weekend, with a trailer on her Instagram featuring previously unreleased songs "My Heart Goes (La Di Da)" with Topic and "Through the Night" with 220 Kid. She also confirmed that the album would be released on 27 August 2021. The tracklist was later confirmed in full by Official Charts.[23]

Discography[]

Main article: Becky Hill discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

Awards and nominations[]

Year Organisation Award Result
2015 MTV Brand New For 2015[25] Nominated

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Becky Hill". Facebook. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b "Becky Hill". BBC. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Williams, Pip (17 March 2017). "Becky Hill: The Real Reality". The Line of Best Fit. Retrieved 18 March 2017.
  4. ^ "Becky Hill | Album Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  5. ^ "BBC Hereford & Worcester – BBC Introducing in Hereford & Worcester, Andrew Marston introduces live music from Becky Hill (Bewdley)". Bbc.co.uk. 4 May 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  6. ^ "BBC News – Becky Hill's Shaking Trees' BBC Introducing session". Bbc.co.uk. 27 May 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  7. ^ "Premier League predictions: Lawro v singer Becky Hill". BBC Sport. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
  8. ^ Kelleher, Patrick (12 April 2021). "Singer Becky Hill proudly comes out as queer". PinkNews. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  9. ^ "Wilkinson – 'Afterglow. Ft. Becky Hill". Selfblown.co.uk. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  10. ^ "Wilkinson – Afterglow ft. Becky Hill". Datatransmission.co.uk. 2 October 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  11. ^ "WILKINSON". The Official Charts Company. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  12. ^ "Oliver Heldens and Becky Hill claim UK number one single with 'Gecko' – Music News". Digital Spy. 29 June 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  13. ^ "Official Charts - Becky Hill (artist page)". The Official Charts Company. Retrieved 16 November 2014.
  14. ^ "Reigan Derry". Rush Entertainment. Archived from the original on 23 December 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  15. ^ Jump up to: a b "Becky Hill signs to Polydor". Music Week. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  16. ^ "Becky Hill unveils 'Sunrise in the East' video and October UK tour dates". Celebmix.com. 21 June 2018. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  17. ^ "Becky Hill on Instagram: "surprise! i have a mini-album coming out on friday that has all the hits u know & love along with 4 BRAND NEW TRACKS!!! fridayyyyy!!!"". Instagram.com. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  18. ^ Sayce, Rebecca. "Craig David, Lewis Capaldi, Rita Ora and more: Line-up announced for Free Radio Hits Live in Birmingham". Expressandstar.com. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  19. ^ "Becky Hill on Instagram: "here's a lil backstory as to why i chose to cover Only You this christmas... this year my grandad, one of my favourite male role models…"". Retrieved 5 February 2020 – via Instagram.
  20. ^ "Space - Single by Becky Hill". Apple Music. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  21. ^ "The 2020 McDonald's Christmas advert is a tearjerker and features an '80s pop classic". Smooth. Retrieved 24 November 2020.
  22. ^ "Becky Hill | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". Officialcharts.com. Retrieved 11 February 2021.
  23. ^ "Becky Hill announces debut album title, tracklist and release date".
  24. ^ "Becky Hill on Instagram: "Just so u know @polydorrecords gave me a release date for the album next year so u know it's actually happening for real after 8 years of saying it's coming