Mabel (b. 1996)
Filed under the name Mabel · February 3, 2026
Mabel, the British singer-songwriter behind 'Don't Call Me Up,' represents a genre and generation considerably outside my usual listening habits of classical music and opera, though I try, in these profiles, to extend the same evidentiary respect to contemporary pop craft that I would to any field I am less personally versed in. Her Grammy and Brit Award nominations suggest peer recognition of real songwriting skill, and I am wary of the easy, ungenerous assumption that popular contemporary music is somehow less rigorous than the classical forms I prefer; that is precisely the kind of uninformed dismissiveness I try to correct in my own students when they apply it to fields outside their expertise. My granddaughter, in fact, is considerably more versed in this particular corner of music than I am, and I have learned, slowly, to trust her enthusiasm as data rather than dismiss it as mere youthful fashion. Candid, catchy songwriting sustained across a public career is its own genuine accomplishment, whatever the genre.