David Kushner Stuns Charts With 'Daylight'

Last week, Chicago-born, LA-based artist David Kushner shared his long-awaited song "Daylight" to an incredible response: an instant #2 spot on the midweek UK chart and tens of millions of streams on release day. With the official numbers in a week later, the track has landed at #3 in the UK and #48 on the US Billboard Hot 100, marking his first time on the US chart.

The singer-songwriter had managed to enter the UK chart once before with the TikTok-fueled rise of "Miserable Man" topping out at #39, but "Daylight" has enjoyed success of a different caliber. This time, fans were ready and waiting for the release, which Kushner had long been teasing. The wait was clearly worth it.

In addition to the fan response, the track has put him in the company of one of his biggest influences: Lewis Capaldi. "Daylight" sits just two spots from Capaldi's #1 single, "Wish You the Best." What's more, it has just been announced that Kushner will open for the BRIT Award-winner in front of 30,000 people at Chepstow Racecourse in Wales.

In an interview with The Evening Standard, Kushner commented on the song's reception: "It's so hard to explain. It's everything I've wanted and more. It just reminds me of where I started, where I came from, and why I'm doing what I'm doing."

The young artist is just getting started. As "Daylight" battles it out on the charts, he is in the studio working on his upcoming album. The debut sees Kushner joining forces with several iconic artists and producers, including The Lumineers' Wesley Schultz, David Baron (Matt Maeson, Shania Twain), and 2x GRAMMY® Award-nominee Rob Kirwan (Hozier, PJ Harvey, U2).

Originally from the suburbs of Chicago and currently based in Los Angeles, Kushner first made waves last year with a pair of worldwide hit singles, "Miserable Man" (hailed by Rolling Stone as "an acoustic ballad that's as sparse as a one-horse town") and "Mr. Forgettable," both found on his debut EP, Footprints I Found.

His emotionally charged songs touched an immediate chord in listeners around the globe, earning featured placement on the coveted Spotify "Roots Rising" playlist while quickly racking up more than 700M streams in under one year.

Photo credit: Jon Taylor Sweet