Calum Scott (born 12 October 1988) is a British singer and songwriter who came to worldwide attention when he appeared as a contestant on the television programme Britain's Got Talent in 2015. He subsequently released his version of Robyn's hit "Dancing On My Own" as a single and it has reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart.
Music career
2011–14: Early career
In 15 August 2013, Scott won the talent competition Mail's Star Search, organized by Hull Daily Mail. After, he joined a Maroon 5 tribute band, the Maroon 4, and toured around the United Kingdom. In 2014 he formed the electronic duo, The Experiment with John McIntyre. The debut single, "Girl (You're Beautiful)", was released on 14 June. The duo performed the song on Good Morning Britain and BBC Look North, but after, broke up.
2015: Britain's Got Talent
Main article: Britain's Got Talent (series 9)
On 11 April 2015, Scott's audition for the ninth series of Britain's Got Talent was broadcast on ITV. He performed a cover of Robyn's "Dancing On My Own" which he had heard Kings of Leon performing on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge in 2013. Following a standing ovation from the judging panel, Simon Cowell pressed the Golden Buzzer giving Scott an automatic place in the live shows. Explaining his decision to send Scott straight to the semi-finals, Cowell said: "I've never ever in all the years I've done this show heard a guy with the talent you've got. Seriously. And the version was sensational, which shows to me that you're more than a singer, you're an artist and that's why you got that (the buzzer)." After this audition, Scott received support from stars such as Little Mix and Ashton Kutcher.
Following his appearance on the show's first episode, his Twitter followers jumped from 400 to over 25,000. As of 14 August 2017 the audition has been viewed exactly 120,378,372 times on YouTube. In the semi-final on 29 May, Scott performed "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" by Jermaine Stewart. Cowell commented "You really sound like a recording artist", whilst David Walliams suggested that he could have "success around the world". He won the semi final with 25.6% of the vote, sending him straight through to the final. In the final on 31 May, Scott performed "Diamonds" by Rihanna and finished sixth out of 12 contestants with 8.2% of the vote. After Britain's Got Talent, Scott embarked on a series of shows around the United Kingdom, including Viking FM Future Star Awards, Flamingo Land Resort Fair, Westwood Cross Shopping Centre's tenth anniversary, Gibraltar Summer Nights, Hull Daily Mail's Star and Dartford Festival.
2016–present: Debut album
Scott released his cover of "Dancing on My Own" independently on 15 April 2016. It became a sleeper hit, first hitting number 40 in the charts in May, despite little radio airplay apart from on West Hull FM, it climbed into the top 40. It was then added to Radio 2's "C List" and reached number two on the UK Singles Chart on 5 August. In August 2016, it was certified platinum in the UK, having sold over 600,000 copies. Scott announced on Twitter on 24 May that he had signed a record deal with Capitol Records for his debut album. Scott performed the song at television shows BBC Look North, Lorraine, Weekend, Late Night with Seth Meyers and Brazilian show Encontro com Fátima Bernardes. He also promoted the song on several radio stations, including BBC Radio Humberside, Viking FM, Radio Gibraltar, BFBS Radio and Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation. On 16 September, he released the promotional single "Transformar" with Brazilian recording artist Ivete Sangalo as official theme of 2016 Summer Paralympics Games. They performed the song at the closing ceremony of the Paralympics on 18 September. It was revealed in September 2016 that "Dancing on My Own" was the most downloaded song of the summer in the UK.