Self Esteem Releases New Album “A Complicated Woman”
British singer-songwriter Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem released her third studio album “A Complicated Woman” on April 25, 2025.
The album comprises 12 songs, featuring guest appearances from Sue Tompkins, Moonchild Sanelly and Nadine Shah. Produced by Johan Hugo and Rob Milton.
It is her first album in four years since the 2021 album “Prioritise Pleasure”.
She started making the album after playing Sally Bowles in the West End show Cabaret in 2023.
For Self Esteem, the album is a big project featuring choirs and orchestras for the first time, and focuses on themes of taking back control of your own life and exposing the social inequities imposed upon women.
Self Esteem told Apple Music, “Women are still meant to be this one thing. You can have everything, but you have to stay in line. It's a kind of collection of national anthems for that idea.”
Self Esteem first performed the album at Duke of York's theatre in London from April 16 to 20, 2025.
Self Esteem told Apple Music about the album, “I'm proud of how it's come out. It's dense and it's complicated, because this time in my life is dense and it's complicated. This is the first time I've had access to a proper choir and string arrangement, which was amazing. I'm not one of those people who goes into the studio and jams, but if you leave me alone to think I can do it. Back in the day, I would try and write from nine to five, but it doesn't work like that for me.”
Self Esteem explained track-by-track for the album via Apple Music.
“I Do and I Don't Care” “The point of the album is that things are shit, but you have to just keep finding those little pockets of resistance, even if they're tiny, and then try and be OK. This lyric came when I went home to Sheffield and someone asked how I was and I probably was whinging. But I thought, 'Of course we're complaining. What else are we going to do? You would be too if the system wasn't moving for you in the way that it does.' I suppose my ethos is I'm a complainer, I'll always whinge, even when I've got what I want. But I'll always meet it with some action. Whinging and doing nothing about it: bad. Whinging and trying: good.”
“Focus Is Power” “'Focus Is Power' is a bit feel-good and I'm trying to say, 'Keep going, keep trying, keep your eye on the prize.' Not in a cheesy way. But I do wonder, 'Am I a modern-day M People?' For so long I wanted to be in the middle of the stage with the lights on me, I wanted to wear the clothes and have the shit and be invited to all the things. Then obviously I've learned that that's all bollocks, and the best bit by a mile is helping people and having them go, 'Oh, I feel like that too.' I felt so alone until I was 35, and now I get to feel less alone by doing this. People have really responded to this song and been like, 'Fucking hell, I needed to think like that again.' And so do I.”
“Mother” “This isn't just about men and women, but it's about the way that in heteronormative relationships it's so often you teaching the man, and then you break up and some other fucker benefits from them being better dressed and not as much of a twat. It's just so annoying. A lot of gay men are really responding to the track as well. It's just relationships, isn't it? One person is mother. I don't want to be in control—I would absolutely fucking love to be some swooning, looked-after thing, but it's not going to happen unless I fundamentally change everything about myself.”
“The Curse” “I didn't want to get bogged down in singles but then, for me, 'The Curse' could be one. It's about when I was partying after Prioritise Pleasure came out. I was having to go to these red carpet dos and I've never had a problem with booze, but it's the first time I realized I was drinking to be able to do things. Since writing that song, I've had a really good relationship with alcohol. I feel like if I'd have heard it a couple of years ago that would have made something click. So again, it's another song where I'm like, 'This helped me so it might help you.'”
“Logic, Bitch!” (feat. Sue Tompkins) “I'm really proud of this song—it's about realizing just because love is no longer romantic doesn't mean it's not valid. I hate hearing and being a woman that's like, 'I just can't find a relationship and that means I'm sad.' I love watching Love Island and Love Is Blind, but then I'm like, 'Why is having a relationship still front and center to everyone's existence?' The song features Sue Tompkins from Life Without Buildings, who I think is really cool. We've never met, she did it on her phone from Scotland—it started out as a long-form piece but we couldn't fit it all on there.”
“Cheers to Me” “This is about skinny indie boys who make women feel crazy and unwanted. I'm worried about people saying, 'Why are you mentioning body type?' But it's about those men who are like, 'I'm not the problem because I read' or 'I watch arthouse films.' And it's about how the word 'lonely' is overused. Being on your own is fucking brilliant. Alone time is wonderful. But it's on the tip of people's tongues to be like, 'I'm lonely.' And it's like, 'I don't think you are. You're having a nice time, but you just don't have a boyfriend.'”
“If Not Now, It's Soon” “You know that Elbow song, 'One Day Like This'? I wanted to make something like that, with a Team GB feeling. It was definitely a conscious decision to make it feel hopeful, but trying to make a video for it was really hard until I figured it out. It's basically a very big group hug of women who are like, 'Same time next week?' And it's personal and political, so when I'm at my lowest, it's a reminder to be patient and persistent. The speech originally comes from Julie Hesmondhalgh [Coronation Street, Happy Valley, and Mr Bates vs The Post Office actor] at an NHS rally saying, 'Change is in the air'. She and I spoke through it and wrote it together, then she recorded this powerfully rousing speech in her kitchen.”
“In Plain Sight” (with Moonchild Sanelly) “I hate being like this, but it does feel like women are judged to such a different standard to men. And men's behavior gets explained away—and so much more easily than women's. I did feel like a lot of things in my life have been harder because I'm a woman and I didn't realize it—I grew up not knowing there was any difference. This song is special to me. Moonchild Sanelly wrote the poem in 10 minutes, and what you hear is the first time she read it out loud. She cried, I cried. It was a really special moment in my life. We'd done 'Big Man' together and obviously she was comfortable in that space, and I don't fully know her story and she doesn't know mine, but it's that feeling-seen thing.”
“Lies” (feat. Nadine Shah) “I've been a fan of Nadine Shah for years and then met her and we became buddies. And I wanted to start a girl band with her and Florence, but obviously, no one's got any time. I do have an ambition to make a version of 'Lies' with 20 women doing a verse each. It's one of those songs that has polish, but then you undercut it with the hardcore lyrics. None of the songs are meant to be background music—you can't work to them, you have to stop and listen. I don't want to be making music unless it's like that.”
“69” “I'd like to write Christina Aguilera's 'Dirrty' for today, but '69' isn't that. The lyrics just fell out of me. I'd had an idea for ages to do a dance song that is just listing sex positions and rating them out of 10, then it augmented into what you now see before you. A lot of people have been like, 'Oh, it's very brave to put that out.' I was like, 'I didn't even notice.' It's pretty political to do a sexy song, but it's instructive and it's inherently not sexy. I'm saying it without the MO being to turn men on. So many overwhelming responses have been like, 'Finally, someone said it.' What else are we mass nodding along to and pretending we like here? Like heels.”
“What Now” “This is an idea I've had in my head for such a long time of getting everything you want and then it still not being all right. Disney created happy ever after and that's a fallacy. Worse than that, I really do still adhere in my soul to feeling like, 'Oh, well, when I've got that, I'll be all right. And when my hair's down to here, it'll be better.' And then you realize, you get somewhere and then it's just more and then you'll die. So it's more dense than that. I don't think the album is all female-based issues, it's finding the world a bit tough and not getting everything as seemingly as quick as everyone else does, and no one admits it. We're all still faking it.”
“The Deep Blue Okay” “This is one of the most important songs I've ever written. It had to be the final track on the album, so it might suffer from people not bothering to listen to it. When I was writing this, I thought, 'What's my version of LCD Soundsystem's “All My Friends”?' I wrote it in about 10 minutes and it's insanely emotional. It's so personal to me, but everyone is finding their own journey in it. I'm conscious that people-pleasing felt like it kept me safe and I'd love to be able to have more conflict and say what I mean more. The songs sound like they do, but in my actual life you wouldn't believe how scared and shy I am about saying what I want.”
