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Glass Pear is singer/songwriter Yestyn Griffiths. The Welsh singer is the younger brother of recording artist Jem. After co-writing songs for her first album, Finally Woken, and the follow-up, Down To Earth, Griffiths sent a 4 track demo to the DJ Nic Harcourt of KCRW. Harcourt's early support for the tracks "Last Day Of Your Life" and "Vultures" was instrumental in getting the music heard. In late 2008, the producers of 90210 chose "Last Day Of Your Life" to end the first episode of the new series and Grey's Anatomy used the track in early 2009. Described by Dave Matthews' A&R as being like "Keane but with balls", Griffiths cites Jeff Buckley and The Beatles as influences, while echoes of early Radiohead and Coldplay are heard throughout Glass Pear's stadium-sized sound.
Asked on NPR radio for her 2009 music tips, Gossip Girl's music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas said that Glass Pear "will have a big impact in the future. He writes beautiful, melodic, well-crafted pop songs."
In October 2009, CW series The Vampire Diaries used Glass Pear's song "Wild Place". Fox's hit TV series Bones followed with a prominent placing of "My Ghost" in November towards the end of the episode. The first album, Streets of Love, was released on Griffith's own label, WOL Records.
"Until the morning comes", a special collaboration with Jem, was released in December 2009.
An eight song EP, Sweet America, was released in August 2010.
Name origin edit:
"A lot of the songs I write are about the fragility and transiency sic of life and love. So I wanted to find a name that expressed that. Apparently the ancient Chinese believed that the pear was a symbol of immortality (pear trees live for a long time). It's also a symbol of affection in other cultures. In Chinese the word li means both pear and separation, and for this reason, tradition says that to avoid a separation, friends and lovers should not divide pears between themselves. So for me a glass pear is a pear that is fragile, breakable, needing protection, just like love."
