- 2024-05-15
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MUSIC
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Alexander Stewart Releases Debut Album “bleeding heart”
Los Angeles-based Canadian singer-songwriter Alexander Stewart released his highly-anticipated debut album “bleeding heart” on May 10, 2024.
The album comprises 12-track, including massive hits like “blame's on me” and 'i wish you cheated”, the latter of which gained traction through a viral TikTok campaign amassing over 45 million views.
Produced by Adam Yaron, Freedo, Joe Kearns, Kingdoms, The Nocturns, TMS, Whakaio Taahi and WYNNE.
The album tells of his journey over the past three years.
Alexander Stewart said of the album, “This album is a combination of the last 3 years of my life, and making it was truly the most beautiful, exciting, painful, trying, insane thing I've ever done. I'm so excited for you to hear it and for these songs to help guide and lift you in whatever stage of the journey you are on! I can't WAIT to be screaming these with you on tour.”- He shared on social media, “This is a collection of my life the past 3 years and writing it has been the most exhilarating, terrifying, and therapeutic thing i've ever done. thru tears, pain, and revelation came my bleeding heart.”
Alexander Stewart explained track-by-track for the album.
“said so”
“'said so' was the first song I wrote on this album three years ago, which is crazy to say. I was in Los Angeles and wrote the song and I remember this feeling like okay, whatever my debut album comes out, this will be the first song on the album. I didn't expect that to be three years later, but I kept my word to my younger self, and it's just about my first ever relationship and how it ended and being ghosted. And I love the song so much and I hope you like it.”
“day i die”
“'dare I die', I wrote from a place of being terrified that I was never going to get over what I thought was the love of my life. I wrote it in London about seven months ago. And I was at this point, I was getting a lot of a lot of songs from this place of almost like, terror that I was comparing every single person I had met romantically to someone that was really important to me in my past. And I got to the point where I needed to stop and I walked into the studio and sat down song was produced by Joe Kearn and said to him, this has to be the last song I write and I want to make it as dramatic as possible. And so we came up with the idea 'dare I die' and this is it.” - “blame's on me”
“'blame is on me' is a really important song to me because it's the first song first time really I took accountability for our relationship ending and obviously relationships a two-way street but I I definitely took most of the blame on this one things were getting busy in my personal life, and busy busy my career, and I kind of just let my relationship fall behind. And it took me about six months to realize that was the case. And once I did, it was like, delayed heartbreak and there was different sides of the heartbreak, because I was blaming myself and I walked into the studio that day, produced by Whakaio and we sat down and started bawling. I was like, guys this heartbreak is my fault this time wrote the song flames on.”
“all these years”
“I wrote 'all these years' from a similar place that I wrote 'day i die'. And it was when I still was not open this relationship that was now a year and a half in my past. I had a few songs about from this perspective. And all these years was when I was reminiscing, all the amazing times that you do after a breakup, but it's I think it's very common that people kind of forget all the bad and focus on the good. That's definitely what I was doing. So I sat down, wrote 'all these years' and I'm really happy with the way it tuned out.”
“how dare you”
“'how dare you' is probably the most fun song on the album. It was the last song on the album. It's basically just a fuck you song with the touring front of mind. I wanted to sign that we could all just absolutely scream together. And I wrote it from a place of being past, the sadness of a breakup and just kind of being angry. And I say How dare you a lot in passing, as was something I say. And so I decided, why not write a song called 'how dare you'.”
“reflection”
“'reflection' is by far the most important song on the album. It's a topic that I was quite scared to talk about for a long time. As a lot of you know, a lot of you might not know I'm a huge advocate for mental health. And I wrote this song in Palm Springs, produced by Whakaio, I was like locked away at this little writing camp for three days. And it's about it's just an honest telling you my experience with body gysmorphia and eating disorders and things I've dealt with my whole life that I was too scared to talk about for a long time. So putting the song out has been a really freeing experience for me. And I hope it can help some people.”
“i wish you cheated”
“'i wish you cheated' is also one of the oldest songs on the album. I wrote it going on two years ago. And it was after a breakup, everything was weirdly fine. There was no there was no reason for me to hate my ex. And I was just thinking to myself, it'd be so much easier if I could just be mad. And so, I was sitting in the studio and just kind of ranting, being like nothing happened, like there was no cheating. Nothing. And so we wrote this song called 'i wish you cheated'. In reality, I do not wish my ex cheated on me. That would be horrible, but I do wish that I was a little bit angry.”
“strangers”
“'strangers' was one of the last songs I wrote for my album, or in London probably four months ago. And if it wasn't the whole album, it's quite sad. And I wanted a song and it still felt true to myself, but was a tiny bit hopeful. Because I sometimes struggle with the thought of someone being so important in your life and then just never talking again and then you share all these incredibly special moments. And I want to sort of focus on the idea of not wanting to just completely lose that person. And that's how strangers.”
“easier said than done”
“'easier said than done' is one of the more fun songs on the album. I wrote it in London and I wanted to write something sonically fun that still felt true to myself. After a breakup or when you're in a situation ship or whatever it may be with whoever it may be with your friends and people close to you will always have opinion that's inevitable. And when someone around you can see something clearer than you, they tell you to end it. And, you know, you probably should, but it's easier said than done. And that's how the song came about.”
“if you only knew”
“'if you only knew' is also one of the most important songs on the album as it's about mental health. More specifically, it's about my own struggle with depression and OCD. I wrote it about a year ago when I was on tour and truthfully struggling with some pretty dark thoughts. I was at this place where I've dealt with different mental health issues my whole life and talked about it a bit, but almost felt guilty that I hadn't truly open my heart and and talked about it more publicly because all I've wanted my whole life is to hopefully help some people with my music. So I wrote this song called 'if you only knew' And I just hope for it to make a few people feel a little less alone.”
“proud of me”
“'proud of me' is the last song on the album. And it's a very special song to me. I have a cottage or a lake house in northern Ontario in Canada, and it's basically where I grew up. And I would spend every single summer there and I didn't get to go for like last five years until last year. And I was standing there. It was like midnight. I was listening to the wind in the trees and staring at the stars and just thinking about the last time I was there when I was 17. And I just thought to myself if 17 year old Alexander could see everything that current Alexander has done. I wonder and I hope that I'd be proud of me and I wrote the song in London about four months ago with that exact thought in mind. And it kind of was the perfect way to sort of close off the entire album and close off the last three years of my life that this album represents.”
Photo by baeth - source : Apple Music
