Dawid Podsiadło

Dawid Podsiadło is the most popular Polish singer of the young generation. He was born on 23rd May 1993 in Dąbrowa Górnicza, where he learned to play the trombone in music school. Along with some of his schoolmates, he formed the band Curly Heads in 2010, of which he is the lead singer.

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Dawid Podsiadło, photo: Sony Music

In one interview, Podsiadło said:

I fondly look back at the school and its rules. I was that one kid in the class who irritated all the others because I didn’t want to skip class. This didn’t get me many friends so I learned that sometimes you have to do things in spite of yourself so that the others are happy. I stuck with the group because – and here we come to another issue – I always wanted everyone to like me.

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Curly Heads, photo: Łukasz Ziętek, press release

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In 2012, Podsiadło won the Polish edition of the X-Factor TV talent show. Besides great recognition and a hefty cash prize, it guaranteed him a contract to publish an album for a big international company. Podsiadło took advantage of this chance in a better way than any other winner of the Polish edition of the show.

In May 2013, the album Comfort and Happiness was released. It became a bestseller in Poland as early as in its first week. The autumn reissue included three additional songs. Over a few years, Comfort and Happiness sold more than 200 thousand copies, which is a very good result on the Polish market. It qualified Podsiadło for the Diamond Record (awarded for selling more than 150 thousand copies).

This subtle and soft-sounding album was produced by Bogdan Kondracki. Podsiadło wrote the lyrics – but only the ones in English. Karolina Kozak was responsible for all the hits in Polish – Trójkąty i Kwadraty (Triangles and Squares) and Nieznajomy (Stranger). The young singer’s cooperation with these two has made people suspect that it is Kondracki, Kozak, and Podsiadło who form the band Bokka (its members keep their identities a secret).

A few months after the premiere of Comfort and Happiness, Podsiadło received a nomination for the Paszport award given by Polityka magazine. In the spring of the next year, he received four Fryderyki awards: best album, best debut, the song of the year (Trójkąty i Kwadraty), and artist of the year.

Since 2014, Podsiadło has toured with the Męskie Granie summer festival, performing alongside other famous musicians. He has sung four songs promoting different editions of the event: Elektryczny (Electrical, 2013, alongside with Brodka, Deriglasoff, Emade, Smolik), Wataha (The Pack, 2016, with Organek, O.S.T.R.), Początek (The Beginning, 2018, with Kortez and Krzysztof Zalewski) and I ciebie też, bardzo (And You Too, Very, 2021 with Daria Zawiałow and Vito Bambino). The songs Początek and I ciebie też, bardzo were awarded with Fryderyk awards: Początek in the Music Video of the Year category and both songs in the Song of the Year category.

In October 2014, the band Curly Heads – in which Podsiadło sang even before his success in X-Factor – released their album titled Ruby Dress Skinny Dog. The artist was delighted with the speed of the album’s creation process: the record was arranged in spring, recorded in the summer, and its release came shortly afterwards. After a few months, it had achieved Golden Record status for 15 thousand copies sold. Curly Heads have an aggressive sound – more so than Podsiadło’s solo work. The band is composed of his friends from school.

As a band member, in interviews, the artist often gave off a different vibe than that of a musician who has reached the peak of his solo activity:

The Golden Record and concerts which gather a lot of interest are a success. Not so long ago, we had to pay to play in pubs in Sosnowice. Today, we have a record, a cover, a booklet, a tour, and we work with professionals. Is a greater success even possible for a high school band?

In November 2015, Podsiadło recorded his next album – Annoyance and Disappointment. It had only two songs in Polish and these were the ones which became its biggest hits: Pastempomat and W dobrą stronę (In the Right Direction). Bogdan Kondracki and Daniel Walczak were responsible for producing the record. All the lyrics were written by Podsiadło, as was the larger part of the music (together with Kondracki and with help from the rest of the band).

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Dawid Podsiadło, photo: Łukasz Ziętek

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For the first anniversary of the record’s release, the publisher reissued it as a double CD version, with additional songs and remixes (created by, among others, Czarny Hifi, Webber, Kuba Karaś from The Dumplings and Kamp!). In June 2018, the album reached Diamond Record status, like to Podsiadło’s debut. Podsiadło received even more Fryderyk awards for the music videos promoting his songs: W dobrą stronę (2016) and Pastempomat (2017).

At the end of 2016 and at the top of his fame, Podsiadło took a break from touring. As he explained later in an interview with Gazeta Wyborcza:

As long as I want to make music, I’ll keep on doing it. It turned out that without music, I can’t recharge and I lose the will to do other things. Thanks to the break, I understood how it works, I’ve cracked this complicated code.

He came back in mid-2018 by giving his first concert on the Main Stage of Open’er Festival – Poland’s biggest festival. For the end of the year, he planned concerts in the biggest cities, in big concert halls such as Torwar in Warsaw and Spodek in Katowice.

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Dawid Podsiadlo - Matylda (na żywo, akustycznie)

In autumn 2018, Podsiadło released his third solo album – Małomiasteczkowy (Provincial or Small-town). It was produced by Bartosz Dziedzic who was also responsible for the sound of Artur Rojek’s Składam Się Z Ciągłych Powtórzeń, Monika Brodka’s Granda and Lech Janerka’s Plagiaty. The single promoting the record was released in May 2018. In a month, the song had over 7 million views on YouTube. The album was also appreciated by the jury of Polityka magazine’s Paszporty award and, in 2019, won in the Entertainment Music category.

In an interview with Jarosław Szubrycht, Podsiadło said:

Small-town is considered to be a derogatory word, which, in my song, is presented in a favourable, positive, and tender way. Many people write to me proudly: "Dawid, I’m also from a small town and this song made my day, it was easier for me to smile at people on the street".

Podsiadło's fourth studio album, Lata Dwudzieste (Twenties) was released in October 2022. The artist, approaching his 30th birthday, captured the dilemmas and reflections accompanying him at this stage of his life. It's a sentimental journey into his childhood in the 1990s (TAZOSy), a condemnation of hypocrisy (POST) or a recollection of his participation in TV talent shows (a duet with sanah O czym śnisz? (What are you dreaming about?)). The album includes more danceable tracks, such as WiRUS, and calm ones, such as mori. The latter is one of Podsiadło's most intimate songs: ‘When mori was created, I was convinced that such an intimate song, so focused on content, could not be complemented by imagery in a way that would not take something away from it’, the musician wrote on his social media. However, the music video was made – it's view of Warsaw, deserted during the coronavirus pandemic, with Jerzy Skolimowski walking through its streets. A year later, an expanded version of the album, titled Lata Dwudzieste z kawałkiem (Twenties and a bit, 2023), was also released, including a live recording of the song Długość dźwięku samotności in duet with Artur Rojek and covers of T.Love's Bóg and Anna Jantar's Nic Nie Może Wiecznie Trwać.

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Dawid Podsiadło - mori (Official Video)

Among Podsiadło’s guest appearances on other records, the ones most worth noting are in the songs from the singer Karolina Kozak (Homemade, 2012), Ten Typ Mes (Ała, 2016) and the rap-duo Taconafide (Soma 0,25 mg, 2018). Recorded with Bitamina, the song Nikt was included on the compilation Heartbreaks & Promises Vol. 4 by the duo Flirtini (2018). The artists also recorded the song Ulek i Dawcia together for Vito's album Pracownia. Podsiadło’s song 4:30 appeared on the soundtrack for the film Stones for the Rampart directed by Robert Gliński in 2014. In collaboration with rapper Taco Hemingway, Podsiadło recorded songs W PIĄTKI LEŻĘ W WANNIE and SANATORIUM for the rapper's album POCZTÓWKA Z WWA, LATO '19 (2019) and the track Całe Lata for Taco Hemingway's album 1-800-OŚWIECENIE. In 2019, the artists played a joint concert at the National Stadium in Warsaw, breaking Poland's record at the time and filling the entire stadium, over 60,000 seats. Podsiadło also made a guest appearance on sanah's album with the duet ostatnia nadzieja (Uczta, 2022) – the recording earned diamond status with more than 250,000 copies sold.

Dawid Podsiadło has performed at Poland’s biggest festivals: Open’er in Gdynia, Live Music in Kraków and on the National Festival of Polish Song in Opole. Just a few weeks after his debut, he supported Lana Del Rey before her concert in Warsaw. After breaking the record with Taco Hemingway in 2019, Podsiadło reached for another record by playing a concert at the National Stadium in Warsaw in 2023 with a centrally located stage, 360 degrees, which increased the ticket pool and set a new record of 80,000 seats sold.

Podsiadło was co-producer of the films (Nie)znajomi (2019) and Johnny (2022). Podsiadło often appears in commercials. His image has been used by brands such as Play (Polish mobile network operator), Johnnie Walker and the bank Credit Agricole. In February 2021, he and Radoslaw Kotarski released the first episode of the Podsiadlo Kotarski Podcast, a podcast conducted in the form of a friendly chat in which they discuss a variety of topics, primarily related to pop culture.

Discography:

2013 – Comfort and Happiness
2015 – Annoyance and Disappointment
2018 – Małomiasteczkowy
2021 – Leśna Muzyka
2022 – Lata Dwudzieste
2023 – Comfort and Happiness (10th Anniversary Edition)
2023 – Lata Dwudzieste z kawałkiem

With Curly Heads:

2014 – Ruby Dress Skinny Dog

Written in Polish by Jacek Świąder, July 2018, updated by FL, January 2019, AB June 2024, translated by PG, 2019

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