- 2024-12-08
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MUSIC
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Lauren Mayberry Releases Debut Solo Album “Vicious Creature”
Scottish synth-pop band CHVRCHES lead singer Lauren Mayberry released her debut solo album “Vicious Creature” on December 6, 2024 via EMI Records.
Although, she has been in CHVRCHES for 13 years, this is the first time she has started a solo career and made the album.
Across its songs she writes about sexuality and empowerment from a profoundly personal perspective for the very first time.
She wrote around 40 songs for the album. Finally, the album comprises 12 songs, produced by Dan McDougall, Ethan Gruska, Greg Kurstin and Matthew Koma.
Lauren Mayberry said of the album, “So much of this process has been an exercise in empowering myself to listen to my own intuition - something I really trained myself out of. That's ultimately why you start making things - because you felt a feeling, and you wanted to articulate that somehow. I think it was important for me to relearn that kind of independence, and recognize what I bring to any table I choose to sit at.”- She shared on social media, “Feels mad to be able to say this: my debut solo album is out now. So many talented and amazing people helped make this record. Thank you to all of them for giving their time and their talent, and to all of you for being open to this chapter. This experience has meant more to me than you can ever really know and I am probably going to cry about it a lot, which is very on brand and frankly very Vicious Creature.”
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Lauren Mayberry explained about some tracks for the album.
“Something In The Air”
“'Something In The Air' is a song that really came out of nowhere. I was in London finishing another song with my friend, co-writer and producer Dan McDougall. We were taking a break in the shared kitchen in the studio complex when a pretty iconic British musician, who I won't throw under the bus here, came in and started making conversation about electricity, 5G and how it's making us all sick.
Dan and I went for a walk around the block before going back to the studio and were unpacking those theories, and why people want to believe them – and the chorus lyric just appeared.”
“Crocodile Tears”
“The song is a sort of character where I could really let go of the idea that I need to be 'nice,' because I think that holds so many women back in their lives. If I didn't have to be seen as 'nice,' I would feel comfortable telling certain people to fuck off when they treat me like shit - on this record, and in these songs, I get to do that.”
“Shame”
“I had the idea for a while of a song that had the tagline of 'what a shame,' but in a sarcastic way. And the word 'shame' having a double meaning—the shame you feel and internalize, but what a shame you feel like that and can't change it.
Looking back on a lot of my life in terms of relationships, sexuality and my sense of self in the world, there is a lot of shame associated with that. I came into my teens in the early-mid 2000s, a time period we now regard as a bit of a shithole in terms of gender and media messages (post–Woodstock 99, the dawn of sex tape leaks, Girls Gone Wild, etc. etc). What was deemed 'attractive' for women and girls was quite disturbing in hindsight, and that's what went into my brain at a formative time, romanticizing bargain basement, local band boy versions of Reality Bites Ethan Hawke. But now I know better, my wiring is still to find those things attractive on a cellular level. I know not to want those things academically, but emotionally, romantically, sexually, I have been trained to find those things valuable and attractive.
I know you are what you eat and it's the taste that keeps me tame.”
“Change Shapes”
“I feel like I perform to the general public but also play a character inside the internal experience, because there is so much negotiation involved in my existence there. How do I keep people happy enough that they'll let me do the creative work that I want to? I feel quite fake and hypocritical sometimes because so much of the narrative around the band is 'feminist', but my experience inside of it hasn't been a lot of the time. I feel like I did all this work to make things function but when you DO adapt yourself in that way, it's seen as manipulative, in order to get what you want.”
“Are You Awake?”
“'Are You Awake?' is a song that started on a rainy day last December with Tobias Jesso Jr. I was thinking a lot about loneliness and homesickness, and as soon as Tobias started playing the chords, the lyrics and melody came to me really quickly. I finished the song with my friend Matthew Koma, who really understood what I was trying to say.
For a long time, I couldn't imagine doing anything outside of CHVRCHES but I think some things that I needed to write had to be done from purely my own point of view. I never really thought I'd write a piano ballad, or a solo album full stop, so life really is full of surprises. I am really looking forward to this chapter and can't wait for people to hear more of the music.”
Background photo by Greg Chow - source : Apple Music
