Rewrite
Holly Humberstone is all grown up. With the release of her sophomore album, Cruel World, the British pop princess is the protagonist of her own fairytale.
When Lewis Carroll penned the sing-song, “The Queen of Hearts / She made some tarts / All on a Summer’s day, / The Knave of Hearts / He stole those tarts / And took them quite away” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1894), he interrogated one central idea: that although fairytales can be sunshine and rainbows, often, all is not as it seems. As with most great stories, you read it a few times, catch the whispers in between the lines, and realise there’s so much left to be unravelled. But sometimes, to get to the magic, you’ve got to make your wishes and go on quite an adventure. As is the case for pop princess Holly Humberstone with her second studio album, Cruel World, released on 10th April via Polydor Records.
Down this 12-track rabbit hole, she embraces the ebb and flow that comes with getting lost in her own fairytale. It feels hypnotic and otherworldly, oxymoronic yet cathartic – smells like girlhood. That’s no doubt thanks to swirling synths that bubble under crescendo-ing chords and melodies that make you want to hop, skip and jump through tulip fields lit by spring sun – or lie in them under a glowing moon. At a time when whimsy seems to be the buzzword, Holly has reached the peak of it with this Cruel World.
On this record, it’s clear that she spent some time on the road with the pop princesses. Opening for Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, that flair for clever, witty lyrics – which she’s always been known for – now echo them in their catchiness, sarcasm and sugar-dusted punch. In the 26-year-old’s fantasy, she closely traces the contours of her inner world. One that glistens with yearning and youthful charm: “Can we get an ice cream on Telegraph Hill?” she dreams on “Blue Dream”. Elsewhere, it cuts with earnest angst: “You wanna act your shoe size, not your age,” she digs on the best-friend inspired “Lucy”. But this is what Holly Humberstone is loved most for.
Release week was a whirlwind. To commemorate the release of Cruel World, she shared a music video for the record’s standout closing offering, “Beauty Pageant”. Visually, she sparkles under the spotlight and twinkles in a jewel-embellished satin corset, where she insists: “One day I’ll make you love me / Come on and make me pretty.” Here, she grapples with the pressures that come with being a woman in music, and the expectations that are forced upon her.
Before the single was out in the world, she took over Farringdon’s Charterhouse Square on a brisk Tuesday evening to perform it exclusively for top fans and listeners, courtesy of Spotify UK. On a lilac stage framed by pink cherry blossom trees, Holly and her band performed a few of the tracks from the new album, as well as some older fan favourites. As she took to the stage for soundcheck in a grey knitted dress, lavender shimmer painted across her eyelids, it was exactly like listening to the record. Soon after, she added another stop on this unofficial mini tour: flying over to California’s Palm Springs for her second-ever Coachella.
With that moment in hand, at some point in the fairytale, you come to the end of the cliff, the trail, the story, and Holly embraces the melancholy and finality of that on this record. She welcomes the fall – not just of love, but a fall from ‘grace’, from beauty, from friendship, and anything that can shatter the dreamstate that comes with living in your personalised la la land. Once the glimmer fades and the glitter is swept away, what’s left? Well, the British singer-songwriter goes beneath the surface with this record…and somehow by doing so, she’s created a bubble you don’t want to burst.
On Cruel World, the stage is Holly’s, and as Wonderland sits with her two hours before her exclusive Spotify performance, she provides an important reminder: “Don’t forget to have a ball.”
Watch “Beauty Pageant”…
Read the exclusive interview…
What would you say this album says about where you are now, and what you’ve learned about yourself through making this album?
I’ve learned so much through the writing and creation process, in so many ways. When I came off of the [Eras] tour…for context, since 2020 / the end of lockdown, I was pretty much on tour the whole time and have been swept up in this crazy, amazing whirlwind of touring. The industry itself is a very overstimulating place to exist in, and whilst I’ve been doing that also, it hasn’t left me enough time – or a lot of time – to be a human being as well, and learn about myself. Coming off tour in September, it was the first time I’d had an extended period of time at home in London to figure out who I am as a person, outside of being an artist, which was all I knew for a long time. For that reason, the project represents me so much, in a fuller way, than anything has before that I’ve released. I’ve had time to think about it and make something that represents me, right now.
You’ve spoken about how this was inspired by reflecting on your childhood and making a physical transition away from that ‘safe space’, as well as simply growing up. Can you talk more about how that influenced the storytelling on Cruel World?
I’ve been going through quite a lot of changes in my personal life, as well as being a young person in the world, and growing up. I’ve moved out of my childhood home, which is a big thing to me, because that place is my anchor. Getting to go back and spend proper time there, at my childhood home, in my childhood bedroom, going through everything that I’ve ever owned, and rediscovering old, lost, forgotten items that defined me, was a lovely, introspective time. I wouldn’t have got that if I hadn’t been allowed so much time to create, write and grow as a person. One of the main themes of the album is realising that love is this really nuanced thing. It’s not as straightforward as what we’re taught it is, as kids, and realising that it’s actually extremely painful. A lot of the strong things we feel as humans, like nostalgia – it’s one of those emotions that feels so powerful, because you have that mix of the good and the bad, to the extremes, and you can’t really separate them from each other.
Is there anything either on the creative or technical side of your creative process that you feel has shifted from post-lockdown, post-first album, into this one?
It’s natural for art, in whatever form, to change with the person who’s making it. The first couple of songs that I released on my first EP, I wrote when I was 16, 17, so I’m a very different person. Even my first album, it was called Paint My Bedroom Black, and I wrote a lot of those songs four or five years ago now. Being a young person in the world, you feel like a different person every day. ‘Who am I today?’, ‘Which person am I gonna be today?’, ‘What am I gonna discover about myself?’ which is kind of fun. Also, I’ve been in the music industry for a little while now…a long time, actually.
Almost a decade, right? If not that.
Yeah, about that. I feel like there’s a confidence, maybe, in the new music. Listening now, on reflection, I have only just felt like I have the power to be the boss of my project, and to call the shots a bit more. I think it comes with being a woman in the industry, unfortunately. We don’t really get taken seriously and being listened to [means] we have to be 10 times louder. I’ve experienced that firsthand with stuff internally, on my team, and on a bigger scale as well – and just being a person in the world. This time, I’ve been able to craft my own team and step up and take a bit of agency. And [say] no, that doesn’t represent me, that doesn’t feel like it fits on this album, this is what feels like me. Creatively, I’ve worked with my big sister [Eleri] on so much of the creative. It’s been so fun dreaming it all up with her on Pinterest for months, and then seeing it all come to life.
The album title, Cruel World, feels like a fitting one for the time we’re in, but also when you listen to it lyrically, and also, with your explanation, it does perfectly encapsulate that inner world, especially as a young woman. When did you know this was your title?
For me, and I think for most people who love music, music feels like the only space in the world that you can go to to fully escape. To romanticise your life, transport yourself somewhere else, be somebody else for a minute, or look at your life through somebody else’s perspective. Music unites all of us in a way that you can’t really explain – it’s just the most human thing that I’ve found I can go to with whatever I need. As you’ve said, the world feels like the most terrifying place right now, and it feels overstimulating. It’s hard to get on with [life]. Wanting to connect with real humans and real people – to escape – that’s what this album was to me. I was halfway through the writing process, and I’d written a bunch of songs that I really loved – “To Love Somebody”, “Die Happy” and “Make It All Better”. “Red Chevy” was the first song that I wrote when I came back off tour, which was like, ‘Who am I now that I can do whatever I want?’ That was the starting place. I knew I loved it, but I was like, ‘What does it mean?’, ‘How do these songs all fit together?’ Then I wrote “Cruel World” and everything just slotted into place, sonically and lyrically. It brought everything into the same space and gave me the blueprint to finish writing the album. The title, Cruel World, means a lot to me right now, and I hope it can be that for other people. It also just unlocked all of this visual world that my sister and I got really excited to make; this fantasy fairytale, childhood storybook world.
Are there any songs on the record that feel the most Cruel World?
There are a lot of songs on the album, like “Lucy”, for example, that are at the core, because it’s about being a young woman in the modern world, which is very strange and overstimulating. It’s fair enough to feel confused and overwhelmed by the world outside, because I think we live in really fucking scary times, to say the least. To not even scratch the surface. “Lucy” is a song that feels really good for me to listen to, to remember that it’s okay to be overwhelmed and confused and not know how to handle things. We’re learning, we’re growing, and we’re on the right track. Ultimately, we’re in this altogether.
You mentioned working with your sister Eleri on the visual side and bringing this fairytale to life, in a modern-day sense. You get to go deeper into those nuances, stories and the complexities of being a young woman existing now. What are some of your favourite fairytales, and which of them influenced the visual direction of the album?
I have so many. I’m drawn to the same fairytales as a lot of people are; Alice in Wonderland – I used to dream about finding a rabbit hole, and hoping that I’d fall down one – Wizard of Oz, equally. I feel like being a girl is playing princess. Getting so lost in stories and fairytales as a kid was all I did. I grew up with three sisters, which is the biggest gift – the best. A built-in friendship group for life. Growing up, my parents both worked for the NHS, and they were super busy and had real, proper helping people jobs, and all I remember is having so much space to play, be creative and make up stories. I also used to really love to dance; I did ballet, and for a while, that was all I wanted to do.
Is there a ‘magic’ moment from your childhood that particularly stands out when you think of experiencing fairytales?
One Christmas, I had this really magical formative experience where my mum took me to a ballet, and it’s such a sensory treat for a kid to go and watch a ballet, because it’s gorgeous and velvety. It was so stunning. The architecture, the pretty engravings everywhere, even down to the smell of old lady perfume in the theatre, and the sound of the orchestra tuning up, the curtains opening, and this paper world is revealed. I just remember coming out of that experience, after fully being sucked into the world for like two hours, and thinking that was life-changing and magic, to be honest. Storytelling is, again, an amazing way to escape and go into a different realm for a little while in order to cope with real life, whatever’s going on.
And did delving deeper into these fairytales – both lived and based on stories – unpack any further inspiration or revelation?
These stories are all building rooms and coming-of-age stories of a heroine going into a different world to cope with changes and growing up in the confusing real world, as a form of protection. Figuring out who you are and where you fit in amongst it all – and adults should be able to do that too. Why should we stop when we’re children? It’s important. It feels really good to escape, to go somewhere else and remove yourself from the real world for a minute.
The last song on the album, “Beauty Pageant”, is you as a showgirl in your own right, of your own accord. The single looks at navigating or grappling with being an artist and all of the external expectations being thrown at you. Why was it important to tell this story on the album?
Women are so core to my life. Central. I’m so lucky to have such amazing women to lean on, to guide each other, through being a young adult. I think I would be a completely different person without my girlies. I’ve always been in writing rooms full of dudes, so I never felt it was the right time to bring this up, or whether people would understand, because why would they be able to relate? The people that I was writing this song with, I’ve known them for a long time, and I’ve been collaborating with them for years, and they’ve seen me go through lots of different phases, and I felt like it was [right]. We had the piano first, and it felt like it fit with the sound of the song. I remember one of the items that I found at home was this music box that I used to keep all my jewellery in. It had come off its hinge, but the ballerina was still in there, and I wound it up, and she still spun, and the noise that came out of the music box felt like such a flashback, That’s So Raven moment – back into being an eight-year-old. Then, I was a bit unzipped. This is my experience of being a woman who puts herself out there for everybody to just judge. Equally, it’s about my experience and the juxtaposition of how I’m presenting myself on stage and how other people might view me, versus what it’s like when everybody’s left the theatre, and I’m on my own in my dressing room, taking my makeup off. Things feel very different without that kind of validation being fed.
Was there a particular moment that sparked this for you?
It’s about my experience, but also, it’s super universal. Everybody, with social media, has an audience. Checking likes and checking follows, basing all of their self-worth – I know I do – on the stuff that I post and being pretty and showing up with a smile on your face and doing the best that you can to deliver is currency – and it’s not the same rules for dudes. Unfortunately, it really isn’t. The amount of time I spend every single morning getting ready, they don’t have to do that. I see so many of my male peers in the music industry – no hate – and they are not giving a second thought to the jeans and hoodie that they’re throwing on. Also, a sick vibe, but it’s not the same. Standards are so different. It’s a thing for everybody; seeking validation from external sources is kind of all we’ve got, and that’s where we place our self-worth. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Am I a sellable product?’
With all of this in mind, how did you settle on it being the last track?
I feel like it (“Beauty Pageant”) has normalised talking and thinking about it. I wanted it to close the album, because it’s my most vulnerable [song]. A lot of this stuff is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I know I can’t be the only one feeling like this. I’ve been so lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing girls my entire life, and I’ve always felt this external pressure that there’s only room for one to win or to succeed. It’s just bullshit. It’s clear to see that women are running all the good parts of the world, and the music industry is an amazing women-led space right now. There are so many inspiring female artists that I really admire and come to, and I’m so inspired by – and that’s, I think, how it should be. But it took me a long time to unlearn a lot of the toxic thought processes towards other women that I’d been taught at school to make us do better, or whatever. It’s a learning curve for sure, but I also don’t have all the answers on it. This is my take on what it feels like, right now.
After writing all of the songs, when did you feel like the project was complete?
When I wrote “White Noise”. It was the last song to be written – I think the second last song was “Beauty Pageant” actually – and then I felt like I needed a change of scenery because, like a lot of creatives, I’m very affected by my physical surroundings. So, I went to Nashville for two weeks and did a lot of fun yeehaw shit, which was very strange, but one of the moments I remember was writing “White Noise” and there being no pressure. I’ve kind of finished the album and said a lot of what I wanted to say – let’s just have some fun, make a pop song and see what happens, and we did. Then, because we were in Nashville, it had ripples of country throughout it, which is an area I’ve never really explored. Coming home, I was really happy with how everything felt cohesive. It’s also important to draw the line at some point – I could just keep writing forever and ever and ever. It’s always hard to feel like it’s ever completely finished, but that’s the beauty of getting to make stuff. To share it, this is a time capsule of what’s been going on in the last year and a half, and who knows what the next chapter will sound and look like.
Listen to Cruel World…
Words – Aswan Magumbe
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Holly Humberstone is all grown up. With the release of her sophomore album, Cruel World, the British pop princess is the protagonist of her own fairytale.
When Lewis Carroll penned the sing-song, “The Queen of Hearts / She made some tarts / All on a Summer’s day, / The Knave of Hearts / He stole those tarts / And took them quite away” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1894), he interrogated one central idea: that although fairytales can be sunshine and rainbows, often, all is not as it seems. As with most great stories, you read it a few times, catch the whispers in between the lines, and realise there’s so much left to be unravelled. But sometimes, to get to the magic, you’ve got to make your wishes and go on quite an adventure. As is the case for pop princess Holly Humberstone with her second studio album, Cruel World, released on 10th April via Polydor Records.
Down this 12-track rabbit hole, she embraces the ebb and flow that comes with getting lost in her own fairytale. It feels hypnotic and otherworldly, oxymoronic yet cathartic – smells like girlhood. That’s no doubt thanks to swirling synths that bubble under crescendo-ing chords and melodies that make you want to hop, skip and jump through tulip fields lit by spring sun – or lie in them under a glowing moon. At a time when whimsy seems to be the buzzword, Holly has reached the peak of it with this Cruel World.
On this record, it’s clear that she spent some time on the road with the pop princesses. Opening for Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo, that flair for clever, witty lyrics – which she’s always been known for – now echo them in their catchiness, sarcasm and sugar-dusted punch. In the 26-year-old’s fantasy, she closely traces the contours of her inner world. One that glistens with yearning and youthful charm: “Can we get an ice cream on Telegraph Hill?” she dreams on “Blue Dream”. Elsewhere, it cuts with earnest angst: “You wanna act your shoe size, not your age,” she digs on the best-friend inspired “Lucy”. But this is what Holly Humberstone is loved most for.
Release week was a whirlwind. To commemorate the release of Cruel World, she shared a music video for the record’s standout closing offering, “Beauty Pageant”. Visually, she sparkles under the spotlight and twinkles in a jewel-embellished satin corset, where she insists: “One day I’ll make you love me / Come on and make me pretty.” Here, she grapples with the pressures that come with being a woman in music, and the expectations that are forced upon her.
Before the single was out in the world, she took over Farringdon’s Charterhouse Square on a brisk Tuesday evening to perform it exclusively for top fans and listeners, courtesy of Spotify UK. On a lilac stage framed by pink cherry blossom trees, Holly and her band performed a few of the tracks from the new album, as well as some older fan favourites. As she took to the stage for soundcheck in a grey knitted dress, lavender shimmer painted across her eyelids, it was exactly like listening to the record. Soon after, she added another stop on this unofficial mini tour: flying over to California’s Palm Springs for her second-ever Coachella.
With that moment in hand, at some point in the fairytale, you come to the end of the cliff, the trail, the story, and Holly embraces the melancholy and finality of that on this record. She welcomes the fall – not just of love, but a fall from ‘grace’, from beauty, from friendship, and anything that can shatter the dreamstate that comes with living in your personalised la la land. Once the glimmer fades and the glitter is swept away, what’s left? Well, the British singer-songwriter goes beneath the surface with this record…and somehow by doing so, she’s created a bubble you don’t want to burst.
On Cruel World, the stage is Holly’s, and as Wonderland sits with her two hours before her exclusive Spotify performance, she provides an important reminder: “Don’t forget to have a ball.”
Watch “Beauty Pageant”…
Read the exclusive interview…
What would you say this album says about where you are now, and what you’ve learned about yourself through making this album?
I’ve learned so much through the writing and creation process, in so many ways. When I came off of the [Eras] tour…for context, since 2020 / the end of lockdown, I was pretty much on tour the whole time and have been swept up in this crazy, amazing whirlwind of touring. The industry itself is a very overstimulating place to exist in, and whilst I’ve been doing that also, it hasn’t left me enough time – or a lot of time – to be a human being as well, and learn about myself. Coming off tour in September, it was the first time I’d had an extended period of time at home in London to figure out who I am as a person, outside of being an artist, which was all I knew for a long time. For that reason, the project represents me so much, in a fuller way, than anything has before that I’ve released. I’ve had time to think about it and make something that represents me, right now.
You’ve spoken about how this was inspired by reflecting on your childhood and making a physical transition away from that ‘safe space’, as well as simply growing up. Can you talk more about how that influenced the storytelling on Cruel World?
I’ve been going through quite a lot of changes in my personal life, as well as being a young person in the world, and growing up. I’ve moved out of my childhood home, which is a big thing to me, because that place is my anchor. Getting to go back and spend proper time there, at my childhood home, in my childhood bedroom, going through everything that I’ve ever owned, and rediscovering old, lost, forgotten items that defined me, was a lovely, introspective time. I wouldn’t have got that if I hadn’t been allowed so much time to create, write and grow as a person. One of the main themes of the album is realising that love is this really nuanced thing. It’s not as straightforward as what we’re taught it is, as kids, and realising that it’s actually extremely painful. A lot of the strong things we feel as humans, like nostalgia – it’s one of those emotions that feels so powerful, because you have that mix of the good and the bad, to the extremes, and you can’t really separate them from each other.
Is there anything either on the creative or technical side of your creative process that you feel has shifted from post-lockdown, post-first album, into this one?
It’s natural for art, in whatever form, to change with the person who’s making it. The first couple of songs that I released on my first EP, I wrote when I was 16, 17, so I’m a very different person. Even my first album, it was called Paint My Bedroom Black, and I wrote a lot of those songs four or five years ago now. Being a young person in the world, you feel like a different person every day. ‘Who am I today?’, ‘Which person am I gonna be today?’, ‘What am I gonna discover about myself?’ which is kind of fun. Also, I’ve been in the music industry for a little while now…a long time, actually.
Almost a decade, right? If not that.
Yeah, about that. I feel like there’s a confidence, maybe, in the new music. Listening now, on reflection, I have only just felt like I have the power to be the boss of my project, and to call the shots a bit more. I think it comes with being a woman in the industry, unfortunately. We don’t really get taken seriously and being listened to [means] we have to be 10 times louder. I’ve experienced that firsthand with stuff internally, on my team, and on a bigger scale as well – and just being a person in the world. This time, I’ve been able to craft my own team and step up and take a bit of agency. And [say] no, that doesn’t represent me, that doesn’t feel like it fits on this album, this is what feels like me. Creatively, I’ve worked with my big sister [Eleri] on so much of the creative. It’s been so fun dreaming it all up with her on Pinterest for months, and then seeing it all come to life.
The album title, Cruel World, feels like a fitting one for the time we’re in, but also when you listen to it lyrically, and also, with your explanation, it does perfectly encapsulate that inner world, especially as a young woman. When did you know this was your title?
For me, and I think for most people who love music, music feels like the only space in the world that you can go to to fully escape. To romanticise your life, transport yourself somewhere else, be somebody else for a minute, or look at your life through somebody else’s perspective. Music unites all of us in a way that you can’t really explain – it’s just the most human thing that I’ve found I can go to with whatever I need. As you’ve said, the world feels like the most terrifying place right now, and it feels overstimulating. It’s hard to get on with [life]. Wanting to connect with real humans and real people – to escape – that’s what this album was to me. I was halfway through the writing process, and I’d written a bunch of songs that I really loved – “To Love Somebody”, “Die Happy” and “Make It All Better”. “Red Chevy” was the first song that I wrote when I came back off tour, which was like, ‘Who am I now that I can do whatever I want?’ That was the starting place. I knew I loved it, but I was like, ‘What does it mean?’, ‘How do these songs all fit together?’ Then I wrote “Cruel World” and everything just slotted into place, sonically and lyrically. It brought everything into the same space and gave me the blueprint to finish writing the album. The title, Cruel World, means a lot to me right now, and I hope it can be that for other people. It also just unlocked all of this visual world that my sister and I got really excited to make; this fantasy fairytale, childhood storybook world.
Are there any songs on the record that feel the most Cruel World?
There are a lot of songs on the album, like “Lucy”, for example, that are at the core, because it’s about being a young woman in the modern world, which is very strange and overstimulating. It’s fair enough to feel confused and overwhelmed by the world outside, because I think we live in really fucking scary times, to say the least. To not even scratch the surface. “Lucy” is a song that feels really good for me to listen to, to remember that it’s okay to be overwhelmed and confused and not know how to handle things. We’re learning, we’re growing, and we’re on the right track. Ultimately, we’re in this altogether.
You mentioned working with your sister Eleri on the visual side and bringing this fairytale to life, in a modern-day sense. You get to go deeper into those nuances, stories and the complexities of being a young woman existing now. What are some of your favourite fairytales, and which of them influenced the visual direction of the album?
I have so many. I’m drawn to the same fairytales as a lot of people are; Alice in Wonderland – I used to dream about finding a rabbit hole, and hoping that I’d fall down one – Wizard of Oz, equally. I feel like being a girl is playing princess. Getting so lost in stories and fairytales as a kid was all I did. I grew up with three sisters, which is the biggest gift – the best. A built-in friendship group for life. Growing up, my parents both worked for the NHS, and they were super busy and had real, proper helping people jobs, and all I remember is having so much space to play, be creative and make up stories. I also used to really love to dance; I did ballet, and for a while, that was all I wanted to do.
Is there a ‘magic’ moment from your childhood that particularly stands out when you think of experiencing fairytales?
One Christmas, I had this really magical formative experience where my mum took me to a ballet, and it’s such a sensory treat for a kid to go and watch a ballet, because it’s gorgeous and velvety. It was so stunning. The architecture, the pretty engravings everywhere, even down to the smell of old lady perfume in the theatre, and the sound of the orchestra tuning up, the curtains opening, and this paper world is revealed. I just remember coming out of that experience, after fully being sucked into the world for like two hours, and thinking that was life-changing and magic, to be honest. Storytelling is, again, an amazing way to escape and go into a different realm for a little while in order to cope with real life, whatever’s going on.
And did delving deeper into these fairytales – both lived and based on stories – unpack any further inspiration or revelation?
These stories are all building rooms and coming-of-age stories of a heroine going into a different world to cope with changes and growing up in the confusing real world, as a form of protection. Figuring out who you are and where you fit in amongst it all – and adults should be able to do that too. Why should we stop when we’re children? It’s important. It feels really good to escape, to go somewhere else and remove yourself from the real world for a minute.
The last song on the album, “Beauty Pageant”, is you as a showgirl in your own right, of your own accord. The single looks at navigating or grappling with being an artist and all of the external expectations being thrown at you. Why was it important to tell this story on the album?
Women are so core to my life. Central. I’m so lucky to have such amazing women to lean on, to guide each other, through being a young adult. I think I would be a completely different person without my girlies. I’ve always been in writing rooms full of dudes, so I never felt it was the right time to bring this up, or whether people would understand, because why would they be able to relate? The people that I was writing this song with, I’ve known them for a long time, and I’ve been collaborating with them for years, and they’ve seen me go through lots of different phases, and I felt like it was [right]. We had the piano first, and it felt like it fit with the sound of the song. I remember one of the items that I found at home was this music box that I used to keep all my jewellery in. It had come off its hinge, but the ballerina was still in there, and I wound it up, and she still spun, and the noise that came out of the music box felt like such a flashback, That’s So Raven moment – back into being an eight-year-old. Then, I was a bit unzipped. This is my experience of being a woman who puts herself out there for everybody to just judge. Equally, it’s about my experience and the juxtaposition of how I’m presenting myself on stage and how other people might view me, versus what it’s like when everybody’s left the theatre, and I’m on my own in my dressing room, taking my makeup off. Things feel very different without that kind of validation being fed.
Was there a particular moment that sparked this for you?
It’s about my experience, but also, it’s super universal. Everybody, with social media, has an audience. Checking likes and checking follows, basing all of their self-worth – I know I do – on the stuff that I post and being pretty and showing up with a smile on your face and doing the best that you can to deliver is currency – and it’s not the same rules for dudes. Unfortunately, it really isn’t. The amount of time I spend every single morning getting ready, they don’t have to do that. I see so many of my male peers in the music industry – no hate – and they are not giving a second thought to the jeans and hoodie that they’re throwing on. Also, a sick vibe, but it’s not the same. Standards are so different. It’s a thing for everybody; seeking validation from external sources is kind of all we’ve got, and that’s where we place our self-worth. Sometimes I’m like, ‘Am I a sellable product?’
With all of this in mind, how did you settle on it being the last track?
I feel like it (“Beauty Pageant”) has normalised talking and thinking about it. I wanted it to close the album, because it’s my most vulnerable [song]. A lot of this stuff is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I know I can’t be the only one feeling like this. I’ve been so lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing girls my entire life, and I’ve always felt this external pressure that there’s only room for one to win or to succeed. It’s just bullshit. It’s clear to see that women are running all the good parts of the world, and the music industry is an amazing women-led space right now. There are so many inspiring female artists that I really admire and come to, and I’m so inspired by – and that’s, I think, how it should be. But it took me a long time to unlearn a lot of the toxic thought processes towards other women that I’d been taught at school to make us do better, or whatever. It’s a learning curve for sure, but I also don’t have all the answers on it. This is my take on what it feels like, right now.
After writing all of the songs, when did you feel like the project was complete?
When I wrote “White Noise”. It was the last song to be written – I think the second last song was “Beauty Pageant” actually – and then I felt like I needed a change of scenery because, like a lot of creatives, I’m very affected by my physical surroundings. So, I went to Nashville for two weeks and did a lot of fun yeehaw shit, which was very strange, but one of the moments I remember was writing “White Noise” and there being no pressure. I’ve kind of finished the album and said a lot of what I wanted to say – let’s just have some fun, make a pop song and see what happens, and we did. Then, because we were in Nashville, it had ripples of country throughout it, which is an area I’ve never really explored. Coming home, I was really happy with how everything felt cohesive. It’s also important to draw the line at some point – I could just keep writing forever and ever and ever. It’s always hard to feel like it’s ever completely finished, but that’s the beauty of getting to make stuff. To share it, this is a time capsule of what’s been going on in the last year and a half, and who knows what the next chapter will sound and look like.
Listen to Cruel World…
Words – Aswan Magumbe
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