Photo credit: Megan Thompson
One of the more interesting personal facts noted in 17-year-old musical multi-talent Anna
Duboc’s bio is the fact that the incredibly gifted, prolific and stylistically diverse
singer/songwriter is an A student, maintaining that average in her second year of high school AP
calculus. She probably doesn’t need higher math to keep track of her social media numbers, but
they’ve been pretty crazy, adding up to some 45 million streams on all platforms via a flurry of
dynamic singles since launching her career at 13.
Writing about her life with the same emotionally expressive wit, narrative bite and vulnerable
tenderness as culturally impactful icons like Taylor and Billie, Anna has amassed 220,500
followers and over 1.2 million likes on TikTok, 26 million views and nearly 40,000 subscribers
on her official YouTube partner channel and over 31,000 followers on Instagram. Amazingly, all
of her success to date are via tracks she produced with her mom, veteran pop songwriter and jazz
vocalist Carol Duboc.
The release of her upcoming single (set to drop Valentine’s week) marks a unique turning point
in that she wrote and co-produced “One Touch” – which was written when she was 14 – with
Juan Ariza (Harry Styles). It’s the first release of an upcoming batch she calls the Unreleased
Series, featuring songs from her archives which she didn’t feel were right to share when she was
younger but seem appropriate now. Gearing up for this next phase of her career, the singer made
an impressive headlining appearance with a full, high-energy band at The Mint in mid-January.
She follows with a gig at Genghis Cohen February 3.
When young artists are so successful so quickly in the streaming and video realm, one may
wonder if they’ve got the goods live, vocally and performance wise. The great news is that Anna
is as charming, soulful and engaging a performer onstage as she is a masterful vocalist/producer
in the studio. Though she showcased it well into the set, one of the most fascinating revelations
about the seductive, infectious “One Touch” is that in both lyrical content and driving slow
groove, it’s up there with anything magical the Swifties are digging these days – and remember,
Anna was 20 years younger than Taylor when she wrote it. The emotional core of Anna’s set was
that one as the follow-up to her latest single “Poetry,” which allowed her to showcase her tender
skills as a piano based balladeer and the powerful range of her voice, from a soft tenderhearted
coolness to a towering emotion that sears the heart.
Anna’s ten song set, a run through some of her biggest streamers from 2021 to present, offered a
dynamic range of rhythms and vibes, from the mid-tempo lite funk R&B/pop simmer of “80 in a
Flood Rain” and plaintive, stripped down “Flowers and Graves” (backed only by the acoustic
guitar of MD Enzo Iannello) to one of her most compelling songs “Plot Twist” (another heart-
tugging piano ballad) and the sassy, moody pop-rocker “Mystery Lady.” She closed with songs
titled “Sinking Feeling” (which displayed the angelic, Billie-esque side of her voice) and
“Promises from Hell,” but all her fans were too full of her lively, charismatic sunshine by that
point to give into the themes of darkness.
