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Passenger
English musician (born 1984)
Michael David Rosenberg, better known by his stage name Passenger, is an English indie folk singer, songwriter and musician. From the 2000s, Rosenberg fronted a band by the same name; he opted to keep the Passenger moniker for his solo work after the band dissolved.
Rosenberg is best known for the 2012 song "Let Her Go", which topped the charts in 16 countries and accumulated more than 4 billion views on YouTube. Because Rosenberg was based in Australia at the time of release, it is the most-viewed Australian YouTube video ever.
In 2014, the song was nominated for the Brit Award for British Single of the Year, and he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work.
indie folkfolkfolk popsinger-songwriteralternative metalalternative rock
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Early life
Rosenberg was born on 17 May 1984 in Brighton to Quaker parents, English mother Jane and American Jewish father, Gerard Rosenberg, originally from Vineland, New Jersey. He has a sister, and learned classical guitar at a young age, beginning to write songs when he was 14 or 15 years old. He left school when he was 16 years old to pursue a music career, and spent the next few years as a busker in England and Australia.
Rosenberg did his first performance when he was 16 years old. His father, a film production worker, introduced him to Jamie Catto, a former member of the band Faithless, in 2001; it led to Rosenberg getting a two-song spot at the Free Burma Campaign benefit concert at the Royal Court in London in 2002. That night, he met his future writing partner, Andrew Phillips, and established contact with the IE Music label. Back in Brighton, Phillips and Rosenberg pooled their musical influences (from Simon & Garfunkel to DJ Shadow), and started writing songs at Phillips' in-house studio in Hove. In 2003, they formed the Mike Rosenberg Band, engaging Marcus O'Dair (bass), Alon Cohen (drums) and Richard Brinklow (keyboards) through connections within...
2009–2010: Solo career and Wide Eyes Blind Love, Divers and Submarines and Flight of the Crow
After the break-up of Passenger, Rosenberg kept the band's name as his personal stage name, and took to busking for a solo music career. In October 2009 he moved to Australia, where he supported acts such as Lior and Sydneysiders Elana Stone and Brian Campeau. He then played at One Movement, a major music industry-focused festival in Perth. This earned him a following in Australia and he was selling out 500-seater venues across Australia. His debut solo album, Wide Eyes Blind Love, was released in 2009. It was produced and mixed by former bandmate Andrew Phillips, who also provided backing vocals, guitar and other instruments, and featured vocals by Isobel Anderson. Rosenberg also played various shows in the United Kingdom during this...
"Let Her Go" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter Passenger. It was recorded at Sydney's Linear Recording and co-produced by Passenger and Chris Vallejo.
The recording features Australian musicians Stu Larsen, Georgia Mooney, Stu Hunter, Cameron Undy, and Glenn Wilson. "Let Her Go" was released on 24 July 2012 as the second single from Passenger's fourth album, All the Little Lights.
Music video
The music video was uploaded on the day after the single, directed and produced by the Australian video artist Dave Jensen and Tavic. It shows the stage being prepared for a Passenger concert, with footage of Passenger performance with his backing band and shots of the audience present reacting.
Cover versions
British singer Birdy recorded a cover version called "Let Him Go" in 2013 on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.
In popular culture
"Let Her Go" was used in a Budweiser commercial shown during Super Bowl XLVIII entitled "Puppy Love", which showed the friendship between a Labrador Retriever puppy and one of the Budweiser Clydesdales. It was used also in the season 7 finale of the Canadian television show Heartland as the send-off song and in "500 Years of Solitude", the 100th episode of The Vampire Diaries.
