You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishikesh, your way.

Leyve is a jazz artist, but I'm not sure how much that label matters to all the people to listen to her.

I read this headline in Vice from a few years ago that said, the musical genre is dead, Gen Z killed it.

TikTok and Spotify algorithms aren't serving music to audiences based on genre.

And so it's easier than ever to ignore genre and just take what you want.

Like the entire musical world is a giant breakfast buffet at a fancy hotel.

But here are a couple of genre-related stats.

Leyve was Spotify's most-streamed jazz artist of 2022, and a new album just broke Spotify's record for the most streams of a jazz album in a single day.

But let me back up.

Leyve is a singer and songwriter, originally from Iceland.

She studied piano and cello as a kid. When she was 15, she was a guest soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

She went to Berkeley College of Music in Boston, and that's when she started writing songs.

While she was still a student, she had a number one hit on Icelandic radio.

Her first album debuted at number one on Billboard's alternative new artist chart.

Her second album, Bewitched, came out in September 2023.

And for this episode, I talked to Leyve about the breakout hit from that new album, a song called From the Start.

My name is Leyve.

I remember I was sitting on my couch just in my apartment.

I'd been listening to a lot of Boston over records, and I thought I would try my hand at writing something in that style.

There are some very playful little songs.

I have on my notes app on my phone just a long list of song titles that I think would be cool, that I literally write down when I'm like on the train.

Often times it happens right before I go to sleep. I'll be like, wait, this could be a good song title.

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