Matthew "Matt" Sheridan Cardle (born 15 April 1983) is an English pop rock recording artist and songwriter. Cardle was born in Southampton, England although he and his family moved to Halstead, Essex, England. Cardle has been involved in music for a long time, he has been a member of two different bands; Darwyn and Seven Summers, with whom he experienced limited success. Cardle rose to fame after winning the seventh series of The X Factor, and received a £1 million recording contract with Syco Music and later signed a deal with Columbia Records.

Upon Cardle's victory on The X Factor, he released winner's single and debut single, "When We Collide". The track was made available to purchase on 12 December 2010, shortly after the show had ended. On 19 December 2010, the track debuted at number-one on the UK Singles Chart as well as Irish Singles Chart. The track also became the second biggest-selling single of 2010 with 815,000 copies sold within two weeks. In June 2012 it had sold 1 million copies, the fourth by an X Factor contestant. "Run for Your Life" was the follow-up single released by Cardle which charted at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart. Cardle said he was nervous about releasing his album as previous male X Factor winners have not been very successful, and female winners Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke enjoyed massive success. Cardle went onto release his debut album, Letters, in 2011, which debuted at number-two on the UK Albums Chart and the Irish Albums Chart. The album saw two more singles released, "Starlight" and "Amazing". Cardle then parted ways with record labels Syco Music and Columbia Records, however, he signed a recording contract with So What Recordings in early 2012 and released his second studio album, The Fire, which charted at number 8 on the UK Albums Chart.