SAMPLEDAlex Warren announces 'Wildchild,' drops 'Passenger' as a summer opener
The Best New Artist of 2025 maps out his sophomore album for August 28 and serves the first single as a top-down anthem.
Alex Warren has announced his sophomore studio album Wildchild, out August 28 via Atlantic Records, and released its lead single "Passenger" with an accompanying music video directed by Blythe Thomas. The single was written by Warren and produced by Adam Yaron.
"Passenger" is the kind of opening salvo a major-label rollout asks for: bright, propulsive, built around a chorus that does most of the work, and engineered to live on car radios between June and Labor Day. It lands while Warren is mid-run on his sold-out Finding Family On The Road world tour, which has been quietly turning his arena-scale audience into something that can sustain a second album cycle.
A second act after a record-breaking debut
Wildchild follows recent singles "Fine Place To Die" and "Fever Dream" — and 2025's You'll Be Alright, Kid, the debut that pushed Warren past nine billion streams, took home five iHeart Radio Awards, a 2025 MTV VMA for Best New Artist, and Billboard's Best New Artist of 2025. The first album, as Warren has framed it, was the work of "a man who is broken." The second, by his account, is "a man who's trying to heal."
The title is autobiographical. "Growing up, my dad used to call me Wildchild so it's always had a special meaning, and I even have it tattooed on me," Warren said in the album announcement. "Creating this album was really healing, therapeutic and a way for me to continue finding out more about myself."
What the album is reaching for
Warren's pitch is grief processed in public. Wildchild is set to circle loss, the death of his father, and the work of rebuilding — themes he handled with disarming directness on the debut and is now committing to as a long-form project. The risk in a sophomore record this confessional is that the songwriting can collapse under its own weight. "Passenger" suggests Warren is hedging by letting the singles do the joyful, summer-radio work while saving the heavier material for the deeper cuts.
Wildchild is out August 28 via Atlantic Records. "Passenger" is out now.