Artist Spotlight: Loren Allred

It wouldn't be my blog if I don't have a post about Loren Allred and Never Enough in it, isn't it? I first wrote about Never Enough in my old blog right after I watched The Greatest Showman in 2017 and I feel that I still need to write about it today.

So, as you may or may not know, Loren sang Never Enough in The Greatest Showman movie, a song that was considered one of the greatest ever song in a movie. Unfortunately, for so many years, this wasn't her claim to fame. As she only provided the singing voice for Jenny Lind, which was potrayed by Jessica Ferguson in the movie, people thought that Jessica Ferguson actually sang Never Enough. This was compounded further by two factors:

• Jessica Ferguson was the only one who didn't perform her character's song. All the other cast: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Zendaya, Michelle Williams and Keala Settle all performed their own songs, so it made perfect sense for people to think that Jessica Ferguson performed her song too.
• Soundcloud covers, Youtube covers, Youtube lyric videos and many other content actually used Jessica Ferguson's photo even though the image says Loren Allred. A lot of people don't know both Jessica Ferguson AND Loren Allred, so they incorrectly assumed that Jessica Ferguson was Loren Allred.

Loren Allred did release a YouTube video of her performing Never Enough live in April 2018 that garnered more than 36 million views as of today, so yes, it was honestly surprising that this was not enough to propel her to the fame that she should have after performing such a big deal of a song.

Four years later, in April 2022, Loren showed up for an audition in Britain's Got Talent. She said that she was finally ready to put a face to the voice and just look at the faces of the judges and the audience when she revealed that she was the singer of Never Enough. She delivered a ✨MASTERFUL✨ performance that earned her a golden buzzer from Amanda Holden and the whole moment made me tear up in happiness every time I watch it (yes, I'm crying again as I'm writing this). The video of that audition night earned more than 67 million views on YouTube as of today.

Simon Cowell said that maybe that was her moment then and we know how her story went on from there. Tetsuya Nomura chose her to sang No Promises to Keep for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Nobuo Uematsu said that he was very satisfied with the outcome of that song, singing praises for Loren and saying that she is still so young (34 as of this writing) and can accomplish so much more.

I have no doubt that Loren Allred will end up becoming one of the best voices and one of the legends of this generation. She was already touring with legends such as David Foster and Andrea Bocelli, and I have no doubt that she will continue to reach greater heights from here onwards. Listening to her performances of Never Enough in 2018, 2022 and 2024 (below), it is very clear that she still continues to improve. Each performance is so much better than the previous one and the sky is the limit for her. I dearly hope I can watch her perform live in a concert one day.

To sum this up, I will leave you with two masterful performances from Loren Allred on The First Take. May your ears be blessed and your hearts be full today.