PinkPantheress’ debut album ‘Heaven Knows’ proves she’s bigger than TikTok

Dia Dipasupil/FilmMagic/Photography by Dia Dipasupil / FilmMagic / Collage by Jackie Lay / NPR

On a September night in Brooklyn, the English artist PinkPantheress took the stage to sing a handful of her bite-sized songs about love and heartbreak. In the neon-lit interior of The Weylin, a converted bank building at the foot of the Williamsburg bridge, the crowd that had assembled for a Bose launch party was dotted with rowdy, well-dressed TikTok influencers and corporate suits elegantly dodging their impromptu photoshoots. “I LOVE YOUUUUU!” someone screamed at the front of the audience, with the deafening intensity of a character calling for help in a slasher film, as the artist sang her hit “I Must Apologize.”

“You guys are really loud and I love it,” she said with a smile in between songs, running a hand through her long caramel hair. “Please sing, it’s good.” The crowd, most of whom were watching the stage through their smartphones, cheered.

There’s a good chance most, if not all, of the people here first heard PinkPantheress while looking at the screens on their phones. The 22-year-old began her career in 2021 as an initially anonymous star on TikTok, her self-produced viral tracks like “Break It Off” and “Pain” pairing samples of classic U.K. garage hits — Adam F’s “Circles,” Sweet Female Attitude’s “Flowers” — with original, earworm pop melodies. Her wildly catchy, introverted love songs tend to clock in at two minutes or less, evaporating in your headphones like a sugarcube on the tongue.

In the whirlwind of TikTok’s highly individualized algorithms, PinkPantheress’ music managed to make a mark…