In September, Lewis Capaldi was set to release his first new music in three years. Promo posters of him in his pants, sipping a cocktail, had been plastered across the country ready for an intensely anticipated midnight release. It turned out to be an undeniably historic day, and a memory hard to shake for Capaldi.
“Releasing a single the day the Queen died will definitely live with me,” he says. “That haunting fear of like, oh my fucking god, we’re bringing this song out and they’ve just announced the Queen’s died.”
Forget Me was still unveiled on September 8 – with more muted fanfare than planned – but not even the death of a monarch was going to interfere with Capaldi’s big comeback. “This is the thing,” he reasons, “you’ve got to press on. I’m sure it’s what she would have wanted.”
Plenty of people wanted it. Within 24 hours, Forget Me had been listened to two million times. The staggering facts and stats continue:
Capaldi, now 26, is the first artist to sell out an arena before even releasing an album. That debut, , became the bestselling album not only of 2019 but 2020 as well. It spent 87 weeks in the is the longest-running Top 10 single by a British act and has just become the most-streamed song in the UK ever.
