Hit after hit, album after album, many new music artists have been gaining larger fandoms over the summer.
Artists like Laufey Lín Bing Jónsdóttir, a young aspiring artist is gaining fame for her unique and modernsound that is inspired by many classic jazz artists. Her first album titled “Everything I Know About Love“ was released in August 2022. Among her most recent achievements was the release of her new album In a Matter of Time on Aug. 22, 2025 , which reached over 12 million streams on its release date. Her North American tour will begin on Sept. 15, 2025 and will continue to Europe starting in February 2026. All of Laufey’s albums are filled with relatable and meaningful lyrics which add to her appeal, especially to certain individuals at Paso Robles High School.
Algebra 2 Honors teacher Rita Mittman resonates with much of Laufey’s music. She originally discovered Laufey around two years ago by a student’s request and has listened to her ever since,
“There’s this one song called Letter to my 13 year old self, that’s one of my favorites. I love that song, for me as an Asian American, and she’s Asian Icelandic, that song really makes me feel extra connected to it. She talks about being surrounded by blonde haired, blue eyed people, and feeling very different, standing out and having a full name, which was personally relatable,” Mittman said. This highlights Laufey’s creative, relatable, and often deeply personal lyrics.
“You don’t normally hear music that sounds like that. It has modern terms. It uses current slang and things like that. It really is the way she writes and the way she can combine classy, beautiful music with language that isn’t considered to be classy, beautiful and make it that way.” Mittman shared.
One of music’s top creators, famously known as Tyler, The Creator (Tyler Gregory Okonma), has been making music since December 2009. This type of music was his ideal genre of music until over the summer, Okonma had released his ninth album, “DON’T TAP THE GLASS (DTTG)”, on July 21. 2025, which was an album that was meant to bring the joy of dancing to music without awkwardness back to people. According to Billboard.com, Okonma created DTTG when he noticed his friends not dancing in public to music in fear of being recorded. It was released on July 21, 2025 shortly during Okonma’s world tour of his eighth album, CHROMAKOPIA. DTTG has ten tracks and a bonus track if the vinyl is bought.
DTTG achieved a first-week total of 197,000 equivalent album units, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated Aug. 2, 2025. The sales breakdown included 128,000 pure album sales and 69,000 streaming equivalent units, which represented 93.34 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs. His most popular track in the album, “Sugar On My Tongue” has been streamed 86,090,077 times on Spotify and is still rising, having a catchy theme and expressive music behind it, the kind that makes you ask people to tell you what it is.
“I’ve been listening to Tyler since 2021, my favorite song is ‘See You Again’, but my favorite on his most recent album is ‘Tell Me What It Is’” sophomore Haylee-Mae Schroeder said. Schroeder has been listening to Tyler for about four to five years now, enjoying the feel towards the wide array of music genres that he delves into.
“I feel like exploring is important because you never like there’s so much music out in the world, you never know what you’re missing out on, whether you like it or not, or just the genre in general” Schroeder said.
Teasing the new album with her single “Manchild” on June 5, 2025, pop artist Sabrina Carpenter’s new album Man’s Best Friend adds an ironic twist and pokes fun at the idea that women are “men’s possessions” with catchy beats and a “girly” perspective.
Rising to fame in 2014, Sabrina Carpenter started her career with Disney Channel. She appears in popular shows and movies such as Girl Meets World, The Hate U Give, and Tall Girl. At the same time, she had record deals with Hollywood Records, and began to slowly build up her musical career. Inching to worldwide fame with her album Emails I Can’t Send (2022), then breaking through only two years later with her album Short N’ Sweet (2024), Carpenter’s fame came quickly.
Now, with the release of Man’s Best Friend, Carpenter gained 64.4 million streams on the first day of release, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, according to Rolling Stone.
The phrase “man’s best friend” is typically applied to a pet dog, and the album cover insinuates that Carpenter is referencing this saying. Though the cover and name may appear “male-gazey”, the songs the album contains are anything but that. Songs like “Nobody’s Son” and “My Man on Willpower” call out the stereotypical behaviour that men are known to exhibit in relationships. Though the album faced some criticism due to the meaning, Carpenter’s album appeared to resonate with people all over the globe. Topping the charts in four countries and setting a 2025 record for the most streams for a woman’s album in one day, this new album was very successful.
Her album also seems to resonate with our own PRHS students. Senior Brenda Martinez Garcia expresses her support for Sabrina Carpenter’s music by sharing how her music makes her feel.
“I feel a connection with the way she empowers women. Something about listening to a confident voice makes me feel much more confident about myself,” Garcia said.
Carpenter’s target audience shines through her music, with most of her songs catering to female perspectives and building confidence for women. Her impact on the music industry and femininity has been recognized at PRHS.
With a mix of raw lyrics and viral personality, artist Shane Micheal Boose, famously known as Sombr has made a breakthrough into the spotlight of stardom. The singer, songwriter, and producer in the alternative pop and indie rock genre had one of his biggest hits “Back To Friends” nominated for two VMA awards, winning best alternative, as well as peaking on the top billboard 100s at 30. His debut album I Barely Know Her released on Aug. 22 peaking at #2 on Billboard Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart. He has gained over 56 million listeners on Spotify, two million followers on Instagram, and three million followers on TikTok.
Sombr, was born July 5, 2005 in New York city and found lots of inspiration through his fathers ,Andy Boose, presence in the music world. He began producing music his sophomore year of high school with Garage Band on his phone, later moving to the computer version releasing music under his initial artist name of Cherry Valley. He transitioned to his current artist name of Sombr on Oct. 1, 2021 with his song “Nothing Left to Say” where he later picked up significant traction with his hit “Caroline” Jun. 15, 2022.
Sophomore Brooke Van Den Eikhof, became a fan in Apr. last year when she heard about him on YouTube shorts, he has now made it into her top ten artists. His constant in with the trends and performative male persona on YouTube, TikTok, and other social media drew her in. His artistry led for eyes like Van Den Eikhofs to open and ears to listen.“It’s relatable: he talks about heartbreak, sadness, longing, and getting over difficult things which is why many teenagers and kids listen to him,”, Van Den Eikoh said. She believes newer fans have come to love his newer music over his old with his major successes with his singles “Back to Friends” and “Undressed” which display his relatable and catchy lyrics, talent, and good voice.
The discovery of Sombr has led Van Den Eikhof to also learn about “Addison Ray after [starring in] ‘12 to 12’” .
“I think it’s important to explore music genres [to] see the different aspects [of music, and different] feeling[s and] emotions [expressed] and ways of thinking.” Van Den Eikoh shared. She believes that people express their emotions in different ways which follows along with the genre they listen to and hopes to discover more.
As we await, more artists rise each season, and who knows? Maybe even bigger numbers will be reported.
