Rebecca Lucy Taylor, better known as Self Esteem, and her team have spoken out on the stadum-sized ambitions for her major label debut A Complicated Woman.
The follow-up to 2021's Prioritise Pleasure, which peaked at No.11 and has 46,178 sales according to the Official Charts, Taylor's third studio LP is due out on Polydor on April 25.
Taylor also released five albums with her previous band Slow Club, but A Complicated Woman is her first major label release. Self Esteem is currently performing a residency at the Duke Of York's theatre in London (April 16-19).
“I don’t know how the album’s going to get received, but then I’m also like, ‘I don’t give a fuck’, because I’ve made what I want to make,” Taylor told Music Week. “I think it’s going to be a massive challenge, being a 38, 39-year-old woman putting a pop record out and getting it where it needs to go.”
Polydor Label Group president Ben Mortimer said the company jumped at the chance to work with the singer-songwriter when the opportunity arose.
“Rebecca brings so much vision to everything she does, our job is to provide the scale to which that vision deserves," he said. “She has become a really important British artist; she stands for something and she has ambition. Our challenge is taking what she does, and enhancing it.”
I’ve made it for stadiums. I think of those songwriting bands like Coldplay or Biffy Clyro that made amazing albums and then stayed big or got bigger. So I went for more sing-along stadium tropes
Rebecca Lucy Taylor
A Complicated Woman features collaborations with Nadine Shah, Moonchild Sanelly, Sue Tompkins from Life Without Buildings and drag queen Meatball.
“I’ve made it for stadiums,” said Taylor. “I think of those songwriting bands like Coldplay or Biffy Clyro that made amazing albums and then stayed big or got bigger. So I went for more sing-along stadium tropes. I mean, I fucked with them as much as I could and I enjoyed it. I’ve been saying, ‘This is the most commercial singing ever!’ and people say, ‘No, it’s still very alt!’”
Speaking to Music Week, Mortimer said Taylor's new record has surpassed the standard set by its Mercury Prize-shortlisted predecessor.
“The new album has all the trademark Self Esteem sounds and themes, but with a touch more melancholy perhaps,” he said. “She has described it as an album about being a 38-year-old Brat, what happens when the party starts to slow down...”
Taylor's two previous albums as Self Esteem – Prioritise Pleasure and 2019’s Compliments Please (11,630 sales, OCC) – came out via Fiction. Discussing her new arrangement, Taylor paid tribute to her former label home.
“They were amazing, they took a fucking punt on me when no one else would,” she said. “I was so grateful, but then Prioritise Pleasure went big, but in a really non-traditional way, and there just wasn’t enough resource. So then it became a case of, ‘What do you want to do?’ and I spoke to a few people and Ben Mortimer was really like, ‘I know what you’re doing, let’s make it bigger.’”
Fiction was such a huge part of Rebecca’s journey and they took a chance on her when no one else would
Louise Latimer
She added: “I’ve always had this frustration, with every album I’ve ever made where I’m like, ‘I’ve done my end of the deal here, there’s nothing else I can do, and I can’t control how it gets marketed or how much money gets put into it,’” she says. “So it [leaving Fiction] was sad and hard, actually, but it absolutely was the right thing."
Louise Latimer, who manages Self Esteem with Cherish Kaya, credited Fiction as "such a huge part of Rebecca's journey".
“Fiction was such a huge part of Rebecca’s journey and they took a chance on her when no one else would sign her as a female pop act in her 30s,” said Latimer “And Jim [Chancellor, MD, Fiction Records and Virgin Music Label & Artist Services] took that chance. But Polydor is one of the frontline Universal labels...”
Kaya added: “We feel very loyal to Jim and his dedication to Self Esteem and Rebecca as an artist and as an industry friend. He’s an icon of the industry and I really trust his taste. But we’ve had such an unusual time with Self Esteem. Because she was in a previous band and she’s in her 30s, it’s been an uphill struggle in some ways. We needed as much manpower as we could possibly get.
“Rebecca deserves this [new album] to be a success. Everyone deserves it on the team, everyone works so hard. It doesn’t come easy. Not just for Self Esteem, look at Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan. Artists that are hugely talented, but everything has to line up at the right time, in the right place. You have to have that moment.”
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