2013–2015: James Arthur, controversies and leaving Syco
Following his victory, Arthur's winner's song, a cover of Shontelle's "Impossible", was released as a charity single for Together for Short Lives. It became the fastest-selling The X Factor winner's single so far, reaching 255,000 downloads within 48 hours and over 490,000 by the end of the week. The single topped the UK Singles Chart in its first week of release. After 11 days, it was the seventh-best-selling debut single from any contestant from The X Factor, with sales of 622,000. In its second week, the single dropped to number 2, but reclaimed the number 1 spot in its third week, and stayed at the top for a further week. After three weeks, it was the fifth best-selling single of 2012 with 897,000 copies sold. It has sold over 1.3 million copies in the UK, overtaking Alexandra Burke's version of "Hallelujah" to become the best-selling winners single ever. The song also peaked at number 1 in Ireland, two in Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland, and eight in Slovakia. In May 2013, Arthur released an EP Undiscovered Acoustic of six acoustic songs written and recorded by John McGough with all tracks sung by Arthur.
On 7 August 2013, Arthur announced that his next single would be called "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You", which was released to UK radio stations on 9 September 2013. The song was officially released worldwide on 20 October 2013 and debuted at number 2 in the UK, falling just behind Lorde's "Royals". Arthur's debut album, James Arthur, was released by Syco Music on 1 November 2013. The album included the singles "Impossible", his X Factor winner's single, and "You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You", as well as collaborations with Emeli Sandé and Chasing Grace. It debuted in the UK at number 2, behind Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP 2, and became the 30th best-selling album of 2013 in the country. "Recovery" was released as the album's third single on 15 December 2013 and debuted at number 19 on the UK Singles Chart. On 14 January 2014, Arthur confirmed on Twitter that "Get Down" would be the album's fourth single. On 5 January 2014, Arthur embarked on his first headlining tour, the James Arthur Tour, a 37-date tour around Europe.
In November 2013, Arthur generated much controversy over the use of homophobic lyrics in a song. Mickey Worthless, a Croydon battle rapper, had issued "Stay In Your Lane" a track mocking Arthur, because Worthless didn't feel it was right that Arthur was presenting himself as a battle rapper on national radio. Arthur responded to Worthless with his vitriolic diss track "Hey Mickey" issuing string of slurs directed at Worthless, rapping "Hilarious, precarious you Talibani confused, imbellic mimic of a gimmick" adding the slur "You fucking queer". This sparked outrage among the LGBT community and led to Twitter spats with comedians Frankie Boyle and Matt Lucas, and singer Lucy Spraggan. Arthur immediately apologised for his comments and claimed that he was not homophobic. Following this he announced that he would not be posting on Twitter anymore, with his management taking up control of his page. The backlash continued, however, with a Facebook campaign to see his upcoming appearance on The X Factor be cancelled. iTunes offered refunds for his album due to complaints from customers. After Arthur switched on the Christmas lights in Manchester on 8 November 2013, Manchester City Council said that he would have been replaced if the controversy had happened earlier. On 22 November 2013, Arthur's management announced that the singer would be cancelling all public engagements for the next seven days due to exhaustion. Singer Olly Murs came to Arthur's defence, but said later that he was not defending the choice of lyrics.
Further controversies arose after the reviews to his projected rap mixtape All the World's a Stage, particularly regarding the track "Follow the Leader" where he rapped "I'm gonna blow up your family like I'm a terrorist". This led to further accusations of Arthur glorifying violence. This infuriated Simon Cowell who said "I think James, unfortunately, has had so many issues with what he has done publicly – which is a real issue with me... Somebody should have told him to shut up and just put the records out". On 5 April 2014, several media outlets began to report that Arthur had been dropped from Syco, following the dispute over "Follow the Leader". He took to Twitter to deny the claims; however, on 11 June 2014, Arthur announced that he and Syco had parted ways by mutual agreement. Arthur independently released his mixtape All the World's a Stage on 16 May 2014.
During the summer of 2014, Arthur stated that he was working on his second studio album and was close to signing a new record deal. He performed at V Festival in August, 2014. On 19 October 2014, Arthur released a collaboration with British record producer Rymez entitled "Kryptonite"; the song entered the iTunes top 150 on pre-orders alone. On 22 April 2015, Arthur unveiled a demo track titled "Promise" on YouTube. He embarked on "The Story So Far Tour" in May 2015. On 21 June 2015, he performed in the final of X Factor Adria. On 6 September 2015, he announced that he had signed with Columbia Records and that a new album was on the way.
