Tom Dunne: Hozier's sweet success in US is a nice surprise
Hozier has topped the US singles charts with Two Sweet. Picture: Juan Pablo Pino/AFP
Hozier has a number one single in America. Holy Moly! How did this happen? Is the Unreal Unearth album not out for months? And without wanting to sound like Louis Walsh on Celebrity Big Brother, had it not already had its moment? Had it not passed?
The answer to a lot of the above is yes. The album is out since late August 2023. It did really well, topped the Billboard Alternative and Rock Charts and was number one here and in the UK. The tours all sold out and were lovingly reviewed.
Then it was decided to release a four-track EP called Unheard of some tracks that didn’t quite make the initial album. Taylor Swift did something similar this week releasing another 15 songs TWO HOURS after the initial batch.
Hozier described his as songs that didn’t make the album “for different reasons” and which he was now “very glad” to share with us. Expectation in that March 22 press release seemed muted.
You suspected he just wanted to give the album a little lift and keep interest up over his Marlay Park appearance in July. And now look at us: it’s only one month later, and Hozier joins a list of only four Irish artists to ever top the Billboard, Hot 100. The song ‘Too Sweet’ is a US number one!
The song’s initial good reaction on Tiktok seems to have been key. People, or “kids” – there I’ve said it – liked the line “I’ll take my whiskey neat, my coffee black and my bed at three.” Lip synched videos followed. Many, many lip-synched videos.
Hozier’s collaboration with previous internet/streaming sensation Noah Kahan may also be significant. Either way I’m finding it hard to concentrate writing this with the sound of Champagne corks popping in nearby Bray. Honestly, I thought it was fireworks.
So, at this moment of unparalleled Irish hegemony over the US charts, it is worthwhile pausing to contemplate our previous triumphs. So, readers, let me present: a brief history of Ireland as told through its US number ones.
All the more impressive given that at the time Ireland was under the control of the Showband Regime. We had 650 of them. With an average of eight people per band that’s 5,000 showband members. We had two original acts, Van Morrison and Rory Gallagher.
‘Alone Again’ was number one for six weeks in the summer of 1972. It sold 2 million copies in the US alone. O’Sullivan was routinely compared to Paul McCartney and Randy Newman. A pint cost the equivalent of 22 cent.
A breakthrough single in the recording of The Joshua Tree, though how this came to be finished at all, never mind released as the first single, could be the story for a much longer article. Paul McGuinness did not think it a suitable single. Gavin Friday told him it would be number one.
Its success unleashed a signing frenzy in Ireland of bands the UK labels thought might be “the next U2”. I am happy to say, I was in one such band. A pint cost €1.73.
Based, indeed inspired, by a signature Larry beat, with a line Edge imagined and passed to Bono as he was singing, this became a point of reference – the first song played to people- during the recording of the album.
Its video, recorded at Fremont Street in Vegas, was credited with changing the entire perception of the town the band made its own for their Sphere gigs. A pint still cost €1.73, a fraction of what I paid recently in the Sphere, I tells ya.
The Prince song, which had nestled unobtrusively on an album by a band called Family, was released into an unsuspecting world in January 1990. It and its still powerfully emotional video defined the era. People tend to remember where they were when they saw it. A pint was €1.93.
You’ll be surprised by how many co-writers there are on this. I counted six. Heavyweights like Daniel Krieger and Tyler Mehlenbacher, many of whom have worked both with Hozier on previous compositions, and Kendrick Lamar before that. Whoever he is.
Today a pint costs €6.05. Unless you are American, intent on celebrating Hozier’s good fortune in Temple Bar, in which case: you’d better sit down.
