Vance Joy (AU)

About

Also known as: James Gabriel Keogh, James Keogh

Few songs burrow into the cultural consciousness quite like "Riptide", the guitar and ukulele earworm that turned Melbourne's Vance Joy into a household name almost overnight. Born James Keogh, he took his stage name from a character in a Peter Carey novel, which tells you something about the bookish, thoughtful quality that runs through his songwriting. "Riptide" spent 107 weeks on the ARIA Charts, breaking a record previously held by Lady Gaga, and went five times platinum in the United States. His debut album Dream Your Life Away landed in 2014 to strong reviews and a number one ARIA position, and he spent much of the following year as support act on Taylor Swift's 1989 World Tour across North America, the UK and Australia. A second album, Nation of Two, followed in 2018, and a third, In Our Own Sweet Time, arrived in June 2022. His sound sits somewhere in the indie folk and folk pop space, warm and approachable but with enough craft in the writing to hold up on repeated listens.