Rachel Platten

Rachel Platten’s career broke wide open with 2015′s “Fight Song,” a stirring adult contemporary power ballad that became an international Top Ten hit and was even adopted as Hillary Clinton’s campaign song in 2016. Echoing such inspirational call-to-arms as Sara Bareilles’ “Brave” and Katy Perry’s “Roar,” “Fight Song” became ubiquitous in the latter half of the 2010s, suggesting that Platten specialized only in ballads, an assumption disproven by its parent album, Wildfire, and its 2017 sequel, Waves. Both records showcased the fact that Platten didn’t limit herself to ballads: she spent as much time singing rousing pop and embracing a variety of dance-pop sounds. She continued touring and, after publishing a children’s book in early 2020, released the single “Soldiers.”
Rachel Platten started piano lessons at age four and began writing songs while in college. While finishing a degree in international relations from Trinity College in 2003, she self-released an R&B album titled Trust in Me, and eventually obtained a record-label internship while abroad in Trinidad in 2005. During her stay, she sang backup for a band performing before large crowds throughout the Caribbean and determined to make a career in music, moving to New York City in 2006.
Over the next few years, Platten worked on preparing her sophomore album, and toured at every opportunity, including support spots for the Strokes, Regina Spektor, Rusted Root, and Ziggy Marley. Along the way, she began to land licensing deals for advertising and TV series, and her song “Seven Weeks” appeared in the 2009 romantic comedy The Good Guy. Her second album, Be Here, which included collaborations with Fredrik Thomander (*NSYNC), the Wizards of Oz (Avril Lavigne), and Jerry Abbott and Grant Black (Julian Velard), was finally released by Rock Ridge Music in the spring of 2011. The single “1,000 Ships” hit number 24 on Billboard’s Adult Pop Songs chart, and she toured on and off in support of the album for the next two years.
Meanwhile, the U.S. cable TV show Jane by Design (2011-2012) used her song “Work of Art” as its theme, and multiple Platten songs appeared on Pretty Little Liars, also on the ABC Family network. Her song “Smile” was co-written with Dave Bassett and Christopher Umana (aka C4) for the 2014 film Annie, and early the next year Platten announced she had signed with Columbia Records. After opening for Andy Grammer’s tour with U.S. X Factor winners Alex & Sierra in the spring of 2015, she released the four-track Fight Song EP in May, with the empowering “Fight Song” becoming a Top Ten summer jam in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.
Produced by Jon Levine (Melissa Etheridge, Selena Gomez), her third full-length album, Wildfire, arrived with the new year and included the proven hit and follow-up single “Stand by You” as well as “Hey Hey Hallelujah,” which featured Grammer. The summer of 2017 saw the release of “Broken Glass,” the first single from Waves, Platten’s second major-label album; it peaked at 17 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. Waves debuted at 73 upon its October 2017 release.
Platten issued the non-LP single “You Belong” in 2018, but the next time she charted on Billboard was as a featured artist on “Little Bit of Love,” a number 16 hit by Tritonal in 2019. In early 2020, she published a children’s book called You Belong, referencing her 2018 single of the same name. Platten’s next solo single, “Soldiers,” appeared later that year. ~ Marcy Donelson