Timeless. Authentic. Allie Kenny.

By Ellie Kollme

What do artists and bands like David Bowie, The Beatles, Electric Light Orchestra, Big Star and America have in common? 

60s and 70s rock. Musical legends. Poets and rockstars and composers and pioneers and educators. If you ask 23-year-old musician Allie Kenny, the list starts at gifted and ends at life changing. It is because of the inspiration of these artists and so many more that the world is beginning to recognize the name Allie Kenny. 

If you have not heard of Allie Kenny, just go to her TikTok or Instagram, where she has quickly gained serious traction and tens of thousands of followers for her old soul sound.  But she has not stopped there. She performed her single “Numbers and Hands” on Good Day New York (over 110,000 daily viewers) last year, and her debut album is expected in 2027. 

On September 25, she released her first EP, Autumn Tomorrow, which includes three songs, garnering over 12,000 monthly listeners in just the first ten days. Who knows where the count is today?!

Her upcoming album, Valentine Mistakes, consists of 13 songs and features musical legends including guitarists Pat Sansone from Wilco, Mike Mills from R.E.M, Gary Louris from the Jayhawks, Matthew Caws from Nada Surf, and Juliana Hatfield. The album and EP are both produced by Chris Stamey, co-founder of The dB’s.

What makes Kenny different from the rest, and why has her fame spiked so fast? It is because she goes back in time. Like a scientist in a lab, she dissects her favorite bands’ and artists’ songs and lyrics, studying the small details such as chord progressions, melodies and even authentic finger squeaks on a guitar that make each song so powerful. 

By using this practice, she understands how these methods can evoke emotion and influence how listeners feel. She said that people do not write songs like this anymore. 

“It’s a lost art,” Kenny said. 

And she’s here to bring it back. 

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Kenny was born and raised in Ramsey, New Jersey in a musical-loving family. She was raised by her two parents, Meghan and Ryan Kenny, with Ryan being a part of a band in college and in cover bands in his adult life. She grew up playing piano with her step-grandma, who was a voice and piano teacher, and said she remembered writing “silly love songs” as a kid in her journal. 

Her father introduced her into older music, bands like The Clash, Keane and Crowded House, but in high school, Kenny discovered artists such as David Bowe, Paul McCartney and Electric Light Orchestra on her own. She said that David Bowie specifically opened her eyes to the realm of music and how it could make you feel. 

“I started to notice what songs actually made me feel something,” Kenny said. “And it always tended to be older songs like a Billy Joel song or a Beatles song.” 

And through listening to these artists, she has learned how to do it on her own. 

Kenny wrote and composed her first song as a freshman in college. She attended North Carolina State University, where she graduated in 2025 with a major in Industrial Product Design and a minor in Music Studies. 

Some could say she "accidentally" wrote her first song. 

“I started writing a lot in my journal, and one day I’m like ‘this really feels like a song,’” Kenny said. “So I opened GarageBand on my phone and I laid some chords down and I started adding a bass part and a string part. And I’m like ‘Whoa, I just composed a song. I didn’t know I could do that.’” 

After discovering her new capabilities, her fate was sealed: music was going to be her career. 

She learned how to use Logic Pro, an online professional music production software, bought a guitar, and kept writing. The only thing stopping her was her crippling stage fright that haunted her since childhood, but she used karaoke to solve this problem. Performing every Wednesday in Prague during her semester abroad in 2024, she was able to get over her fear. After returning to NC State, she started performing with her friends’ band and playing other gigs. 

Like any passion, pursuing music came with sacrifices. Kenny grew up playing golf and was talented enough to commit to the sport professionally, but ultimately chose to follow her voice instead. In her free time, she works at Ramsey Golf and Country Club, and although she does not play as often as she once did, golf remains a way for her to reset her mind when she hits a creative block. 

Once it was decided, Kenny turned to social media to help push her music career further. She started posting covers on TikTok and Instagram in January 2025. It wasn’t until she performed an Electric Light Orchestra cover that she gained popularity, recalling she received about 400,000 views. Her sudden fame has increased rapidly in the past few months.

“It’s been quite a surprise, but a cool one,” Kenny said. Although her TikTok’s are usually less than a minute, it can take Kenny up to 50 times to get the perfect video. 

“That’s where the perfectionism comes in because I guarantee I could post any of the takes and no one would hear a difference,” Kenny said. “But I drive myself crazy and think they all need to sound 100% pitch perfect.”

Autumn Tomorrow has received loads of attention on these platforms, and Kenny said it is the first real collection of music she "genuinely feels proud of and resonates with.” She is equally excited for her debut album, with all of the songs inspired by her own personal experience. 

The album revolves around the theme of unrequited love, or a love that does not work out. 

“This album is for 14-year-old Allie, who’s finding her way,” Kenny said. “It is for anyone who is growing up and feeling lost and needing a sense of belonging.” 

Kenny's goal is for listeners to feel something. She aims to produce the feeling of frisson, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as a “sudden strong feeling or emotion.”

She does this by writing the melody first, followed by creating the chord progression and the music, then adds on the lyrics. Kenny used old-time practices to produce the album as well, with having live musicians in a room doing live performances together. The album took about three months to make. 

While her authenticity can be seen in the way she creates and produces music, it also reflects how she lives her life. As most of her songs come from a place of hardship, her story can be an inspiration to others, a message to show that no matter how hard life gets, to stay authentic to who you are.

“I feel like everywhere I’ve gotten in life has just been a product of being myself,” Kenny said.

Her authenticity has paid off, and it is just the start.