Why Does Jess Glynne Have More UK Number 1s than Adele or Beyoncé?

Turn on the TV after a long day, and Jess Glynne’s collaboration with Clean Bandit soundtracks an ad for some overpriced M&S vegetables. Switch on the radio – it could be Heart, Capital or Radio 2 – and you’ll soon hear her yodel-like riffs. If you’ve flown with airline Jet2 recently, you’ve probably heard her 2015 upbeat chart smash “Hold My Hand” about “eight and a half times” over the intercom before takeoff. Her music seems to be everywhere.

Since debuting in 2014, the 28-year-old singer has amassed the most number 1s of any British female solo artist in UK chart history: seven chart-toppers. That's more than Adele (two), Cheryl (five) and Geri Halliwell (four). How did she end up on top of the UK singles charts more times than Beyoncé (five)? And what does that say about not only working as a featured artist but also which music seems to connect with the bulk of the British buying (rather than straight-up streaming) public?

Glynne is fairly low-key. She went from: declining an offer to compete on The X Factor, aged 15, to a year-long music course, to working as a brand manager for a drinks company, before making her mark, initially as a featured artist, in pop. Her focus has rested on mastering music written for a mass audience – any sort of stagey public persona side seems pretty much non-existent. As Grant, a keen pop fanatic from Glasgow puts it: “I don't think I've ever heard her speaking voice. Not one TV interview, YouTube video – anything.”

That broad appeal and vaguely defined public presence can be both a blessing and a curse. Glynne’s ear for a catchy, almost inane, melody makes her music ripe for being both synced and rinsed by supermarkets or airlines. “Her music is everywhere,” Grant adds, “and you can have too much of a good thing.” Last week, Jet2 customers threatened to boycott the airline for playing “Hold My Hand” excessively. “I kind of feel sorry for her now,” Grant says.

As such, Glynne occupies a relatable, comforting and decidedly inoffensive place in the pop landscape. Her radio-friendliness is tied to the fact that you can like her voice without processing what she's saying – a quality true of lots of pop. So for every fan who identifies with her lyrics, finding comfort in them in the midst of a break-up or after a bereavement, a sea of others can listen to them without giving a shit about what she says. “It's weird, because basically all of her songs are written with very specific messages and advice – 'I'll Be There', 'Don't Be So Hard On Yourself' – but I've never listened to it,” says Sean, a 21-year-old Charli XCX obsessive and casual Glynne fan from London. “It’s like when you don’t read what a greeting card says.”

A glance over her discography makes that clear. Glynne’s number 1 streak started in 2014 as the vocalist on Clean Bandit’s “Rather Be,” followed by her one-verse-and-repeat feature on Route 94’s “My Love.” Both songs went platinum; “Rather Be” three times over. In 2015, her singles “Hold My Hand” and “Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself” granted her success as a lead artist, followed by Tinie Tempah collab “Not Letting Go.” Then, earlier this year, after seven weeks sat behind Drake’s seemingly unstoppable “God’s Plan,” her Rudimental and Macklemore collaboration, “These Days,” hit number 1. Her Starsmith-produced solo track “I’ll Be There” made it seven this summer.

Songwriter and producer Paul Whalley, who's worked with acts like Little Mix, Ellie Goulding and Mumford & Sons, reckons Glynne’s appeal comes down to two parts of her songwriting style. They contribute to how she’s both hugely commercially successful and also not a worldwide “household name” like a Dua Lipa or Adele. For one, he tells me, the way she avoids contemporary cliches and slang grants her music a “timeless quality”. Paul compares her to “old-school soul and Motown artists”, pointing out that, “played on a piano with vocal, her songs would still sound great and stand the test of time.”

Then, there’s her understanding of a good hook. “She has a very strong sense of how to use them effectively,” he says with sincerity. “In ‘Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself,’ the chorus uses a lot of the same melodies over and over again, while changing the lyrical content just enough to add variation so the listener doesn’t get bored.” Perhaps it’s that very methodical construction that has lead people to assume she’s nothing more than a hit factory; a pop star tailor-made to write facetious pop songs that people like, even if they struggle to connect to the musician herself. But Paul tells me that the active decision from labels to make “number 1 bangers” are never fruitful – the ones who do make it have to come from the right place, emotionally.

Paul’s point takes me back to what Sean said, about never really listening closely to Glynne’s lyrics. There’s tension inherent in Glynne singing from the heart while also keeping her words vague enough to apply to both you and your aunt. “It comes from the heart, for sure,” Paul reckons. “The challenge of writing a song for modern radio is that your target audience is so vast; you have wrap your lyrical concept up in a way that can be understood and digested by anyone. ‘Hold My Hand’ is a good example of that. The lyrics come across like a classic break-up song – ‘Standing in a crowded room and I can't see your face / Put your arms around me, tell me everything's OK – but it could be about anyone: any age, any gender, any situation.”

And that’s an interesting point. Queer women musicians, from Hayley Kiyoko to Halsey to Syd from the Internet, sing openly – and casually – about love that isn’t hetero by default. But Glynne’s music shies away from her own sexual orientation. She’s told journalists, on live radio and in print, that she’s had both boyfriends and girlfriends. And that triple-platinum debut record is about her falling in love – and back out of it – with a woman. Still, her sexual identity is something that nobody seems to notice – most likely because she doesn’t explicitly use female pronouns in her love songs.

“Maybe she doesn't want to be known as ‘another queer musician’,” Grant says, admitting that he didn’t know Glynne had been in relationships with women. “There's still a stigma attached to being bisexual in music that comes from the general public, and she might be worried that she’d get abuse for it. Or maybe she doesn't want to be framed as ‘another Jessie J’?” The “Price Tag” singer, for anyone who didn’t know, backtracked on her bisexuality, calling it “a phase” in 2014.

So in an era of brazen social media personalities, musicians-turned-actors (and vice versa) and viral-driven popularity, there’s something different about Jess Glynne’s success. Like Rita Ora, she was introduced to the public through other people’s songs – a safety net of sorts, where she didn’t carry Clean Bandit or Route 94’s full burden of hoping for success. Being a featured vocalist first also helped make Glynne sound familiar, even though you may not have known her name or had the faintest idea what she looked like. As a solo act, she then lobs for the heartstrings: She writes a song that means something to her; people relate to it; they stream – or better yet – buy it; said song hits number 1.

We want our pop stars to be personal. It’s a product of how invasive we all are – reading into Drake’s lyrics about being a father, or trying to find the shitty ex behind Dua Lipa’s “New Rules.” But, really, beyond the music they make, pop stars owe us nothing. We can easily forget that. You might not know the ins and outs of the Glynne’s personal life, but in reality, you’re hearing about it every time it comes on the radio. Or on that M&S advert. Or on that Jet2 flight to Alicante that’s been stuck on the runway for three hours.

You can find Douglas absentmindedly humming "Hold My Hand" on Twitter.