TRACK REVIEW: Self Esteem - I Do This All the Time

TRACK REVIEW:

Self Esteem

I Do This All the Time

9.8/10

The track, I Do This All the Time, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtd_jlV61mA

GENRE:

Experimental Pop

ORIGIN:

London, U.K.

RELEASE DATE:

27th April, 2021

LABEL:

Universal Music Operations Limited

__________

EVEN though the song has been out…

since 27th April, I have had time to sit back and listen to Self Esteem’s latest track, I Do This All the Time, and offer something deeper than an instant reaction. The moniker of Rebecca Lucy Taylor (who was formerly part of the duo Slow Club (which formed in Sheffield in 2006), I think the latest Self Esteem track is the best yet - and possibly hints at a new direction for album-two (although there has been no official announcement, one feels a follow-up to 2019’s exceptional Compliments Please is not far away). Self Esteem has also announced some tour dates for later in the year. Before I get to I Do This All the Time, I wanted to take a peek back to 2019 and the interviews Self Esteem (I shall refer to her as such for the majority of this review, rather than Rebecca Lucy Taylor) conducted. I want to work my way to her new track though, as I do with my reviews, I want to get a bigger and clearer view of the subject; a more chronological approach to Self Esteem – rather than merely expending a few lines about the song. For that reason, I want to talk about the early career of one of Britain’s finest writers and performers. In this Strong Island interview of 2018, we discover more about the earlier years:

“Could you tell me about how you initially got involved with music and who influenced you most?

Well my dad was a musician and in a band when he met my mum. My whole childhood was based very much around music and dancing to it. I borrowed these VHS tapes of queen videos off my uncle Phil and watched them a lot as well as a tape of a Peter Gabriel tour which was pretty theatrical. I watched them over and over and became obsessed with performance but also the beauty and drama you could make with certain notes or beats. And then the spice girls obviously found me when I needed them. They helped me feel positive about my personality. And anyway all that created this monster.

Am I right in saying that you used to be in an indie band for about ten years. Could you tell me a little bit about them? What made you decide to go it solo?

My band slow club started when I was about 16. I’m very proud of what we did but I never felt comfortable at an indie level- or with the rules involved in that. I never felt ok being cool and relaxed. I wanted more. So here we are”.

Can you describe how you felt whilst after you’d released your first single?

It was weird because I lost my grandad the same week. He was The One person who really totally got me if you know what I mean. He was a ‘show off’ too. It felt like the beginning and like he knew I guess? I dunno. It was weird. But I haven’t looked back and I’m very focused. I’ve wanted to express myself fully for over 10 years. I’m trying to make sure I enjoy it but also be thorough”.

I do want to spend some more time with Slow Club (the duo of Rebecca Lucy Taylor and Charles Watson). That might seem like a chapter from the past that is not relevant to what we are hearing now from Self Esteem. I do think that there is this link that warrants further exploration and investigation. I do think that the break-up of Slow Club sparked something and led to the incredible Self Esteem. Whilst one can see comparisons between the two, I think we hear more of the true Rebecca Lucy Taylor in Self Esteem.

To that Sheffield duo, then. In an interview with DIY to promote the debut album, Compliments Please, a little more light is shed more light on why Slow Club ended after years together:

“From 2006 until their indefinite hiatus in 2017 (“We haven’t officially broken up; if someone wants to pay us enough money for a gig, we’ll do it,” she laughs), Rebecca formed one half of Sheffield indie folk duo Slow Club. The band released four albums, toured extensively and received a decent amount of critical acclaim. But throughout it all, the singer harboured the kind of dreams that went beyond mid-level indie gigs and, as the years went on, ‘decent’ increasingly proved itself not to be enough. “I’ve always been mega ambitious, but in the indie world I was made to feel shame about that,” she explains. “I had to stop it – stop all this nonsense! - and stay in my lane a bit. And I made the executive decision to do it because I thought that was the only way to succeed.”

The catalyst that would eventually call time on the band after years of tenacity turned out to be more of a slow realisation than a fiery fall-out. “[When we released] album three, we were on the telly and I had this day where a stylist took me shopping and bought me clothes and it was like, the best day of my life,” she remembers. “It felt like it was going up a bit and I really liked the legitimacy of it, that more people were working on it and it had a direction. But then that didn’t happen for album four and I just knew there was no way to push it to how I wanted it to be, and I was quite tired of trying.” However, over the last couple of years of the band, Rebecca had found a way to help ease these frustrations. Quietly posting bits of her own outside of the Slow Club umbrella - thoughts and observations screen-shotted and put on Instagram and “a secret Twitter where I tweeted raunchy poetry” - the outlet wasn’t a high-profile one, but it satisfied the side of her that was being suppressed by being in a “cool guy indie band”. “The freedom of that made me realise that you can have an output and even though no-one knows it’s you, it gets it out of your body. So I thought, this is how I handle this,” she explains”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenna Foxton for Loud and Quiet

From the dissolvement of Slow Club came Self Esteem. Although there are musicians who perform alongside her, Self Esteem is more of a singular Rebecca Lucy Taylor experience. As I said, I think that we hear more of her honesty and a greater musical diversity. There are many who are saying that, with I Do This All the Time, Self Esteem has bested her phenomenal work on Compliments Please. It is true that there has been this evolution and shift between 2019 and now - even though I am judging that on the basis of one song. I will get to the track review. First, I am keen to learn more about the start and early seeds of Self Esteem. Because of that, I am brining in another section from that DIY interview:

“Kicking around as a name for ages, from when "me and my bestie were just these trolls scrabbling around in our early 20s and all that mattered was men and what we looked like and it was fucking rank. I assume the name came from having no self esteem, which we didn't because we were just dreadful," the project has now come to encompass the complete opposite of these ideas. An album full of sparse, beat-led bops full of witty, sexy lyrics on the nuances of love and life, forthcoming debut 'Compliments Please' is a record that's unapologetic in its sense of self. "What I might have achieved, if I wasn't trying to please" goes the chorus of lead single 'Rollover'; now, Rebecca's trying to find out. "I kept thinking, I get to stand on a stage and what am I doing? Zipping my coat up, looking at my feet and saying sorry? I can't believe I spent [so long doing that]," she says, shaking her head. "When I was little, everything was a stage; if I was standing on a patio then that would be the stage and the grass would be my audience. And then I'm on an actual stage and I wasted it for years." She chuckles. "It's all very selfish though, and it's all for me. It's all just to make my daily life more fun...”.

I do think that Self Esteem is this very confident and realised project. A fresh identity – I am making it sound like she is in witness protection! – and lease of life, Compliments Please is marked by its authoritative nature and completeness. It is interesting reading an interview Self Esteem conducted with EXPOSED in 2019 regarding the overlap between Slow Club and Self Esteem:

“Let’s go back to when the Self Esteem project first came to you. Did you have a good idea of what you wanted it to be from the start, or did it morph over time?

For a long time everything I couldn’t do in Slow Club was turning into a little overspill car park for my ideas. Being in a UK indie band over that time period, the music industry changed so much. I felt like someone who saw what would make sense to an audience, but there were these indie scene rules that you had to play by. And besides, things were bubbling along nicely enough. But I began thinking to myself: I’m never going to get into bigger venues, I’m never going to be a bigger deal and my ambition is never going to be matched in reality. So what would I enjoy doing more in these smaller venues and spaces? And I always was more of a pop enthusiast and wanted to dance and make art; I love costume and just all that shit you don’t get to do in an indie band.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Lipsitz for CLASH

Towards the end of the Slow Club era, were you kind of putting things to one side – song ideas, inspirations, etc?

Yeah, you can hear it in the Slow Club albums. I sort of fought a lot more for what I wanted in the early days, then I kind of got in my lane for album three and four – I knew what I was doing there by then and what worked. It used to be enough for me until I eventually felt really frustrated, so I had to do something. But still, Self Esteem was never something that I thought I’d do full-time”.

So in a sense, and without sounding too wanky, you’ve found out more about yourself through this project? It sounds like Self Esteem has been a bit of vehicle for you to throw off some shackles.

Yes, but I also credit my laziness in a way. I think a lot of women need to let their laziness in and just go “Oh, it’s fine.” You don’t have to play by the rules of femininity or live up to society’s expectations. I know I sit here in a lucky position as a musician telling people to do whatever they want; but stopping trying to fit in has certainly changed my life. The name is funny because I thought of it ten years ago, when it wasn’t about being empowered and I lived my daily life worrying about who liked me and how I looked. It was horrible constant stress about everything to do with myself. The name was always just there because I thought it was a funny name for a band, but it’s sort of become a bit self-fulfilling”.

I want to mention this subject because, when writing about girl in red (the Norwegian singer-songwriter and record producer Marie Ulven whose album, If I Could Make It Go Quiet, is getting some serious love right now), I covered the subject of sexuality. She is a queer icon whose music is helping to normalise queerness. That sounds odd that we should even be thinking of it as ‘abnormal’. Bisexuality, queerness, transgender people, homosexuality – are they are accepted and discussed in music as they should be? There are L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists out there but, even now, I feel that we have a little way to go until the mainstream especially encourages true and honest expression from these artists. I think Self Esteem, as a bisexual artist, is helping when it comes to the conversation and ensuring a natural and fuller integration of sexuality. Whereas some artists in the mainstream – such as Katy Perry – have experimented with girl crushes and kissing a girl to see what it feels like, Self Esteem is not an artist who is ‘dabbling’. In this interview from The Line of Best Fit, Self Esteem expands on that:

“The record explores love, lust and relationships – what Taylor describes as her “bread and butter” – but with a beautiful twist each time. “I actually wrote most of this album quite happily in a relationship and thought I had totally disproved the ‘theory’,” she explains, referencing the ides that breakups create the best art. “But then we did break up. And I wrote ‘Rollout’, ‘I’m Shy’ and ‘In Time’… so the theory is proved, I need to be painfully stressed to write songs!”

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas for The Line of Best Fit

She came out as bisexual in 2013. “It was quite late, really,” she says. “I’d had relationships with women, but not long-term ones so it always felt silly and I convinced myself in a way that it wasn’t real.

“I remember singing lyrics that Charles [Watson, Slow Club co-founder] had written about women and I never wanted to change the gender and that was my way of expressing myself. And now I look back and think… wow, you were totally bi."

The track “Girl Crush” calls out performative bisexuality, saying that love is love, and crushes are crushes – just crushes, not girl crushes. “There are songs like Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’ and like that collaboration song ‘Girls’ by Rita Ora. That’s fine, I respect those artists, but those songs are problematic as fuck”.

I agree that songs that almost make light of bisexuality (and queerness) are damaging and not helping to advance dialogue and assimilation. Given the number of fans these artists have and the streaming numbers they rack up, so many listeners are hearing a message that is harmful. Some may say that, in a sense, many young women will experiment - and that these lyrics point to friendship, playfulness and harmless fun. I feel that, as so many L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists are fighting to have their voices heard, we need to ensure that the subject of sexual identity is not taken lightly!

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Lipsitz for CLASH

I want to stick with the song, Girl Crush. Again, some might say that me going down this route is unrelated to the latest Self Esteem song. I would say that, as fascinating and rich artist, learning more about who she is and what she is about provides us with much more depth and story. In an interview with the BBC, Self Esteem expanded on the nature of Girl Crush:

“Girl Crush, meanwhile, finds her untangling the mess of a drunken lesbian fling.

"I'm not a holiday," she scolds a would-be suitor, in a lyric that's borne of experience.

"I'm bisexual and I'm quite feminine but I'm also quite tall, so I've always found that drunk straight girls gravitate towards me in a club or a party or whatever.

"For years, because I was attracted to them, I'd go along with it. But then I'd be like, 'There's nothing in this for me.' I'm just a good story for people."

The song is intended as an antidote to tracks like Rita Ora's Girls or Katy Perry's I Kissed A Girl - both of which attracted criticism for misrepresenting same-sex attraction as a drunken dalliance or a childish dare.

"I mean, I love Katy Perry, but I Kissed A Girl is everything that's wrong with everything, and it set people like me back a lot," says Taylor.

"So I just wanted to do an anti-I Kissed A Girl song. Just so people know it's not very fun for the queer girl in this situation. It's a bi-bop, we call it. There's not enough of them”.

There is a final article that I want to source from regarding Self Esteem and the discussion of bisexuality. Not only has she talked about bisexuality, but also the nature of being a woman; her femininity and how, possibly compelled by standards and expectations in the industry, she has felt the need to be more ladylike – conform to an ideal that many women are expected to. An illuminating interview from VICE elucidates on how, especially for queer women, fitting into a preordained and expected mould is challenging and unfair:

“You mentioned to me earlier that a lot has changed in the past year. What did you mean by that?

I still grew up when it was like… I “needed” to be ladylike. I was too loud. I was too big. I was constantly being told to “stop showing off”. Then being in an indie band in the mid-2000s, I had to play this role of “sweet, quiet, meek folk girl.” I’m just slowly becoming aware of a few things. Even over the last year, I’ve realised that’s their problem, that’s not my problem. I really like learning to just surround myself with people who don’t make me feel like that.

There are people who I thought were friends that i spent all my time with, but now I’m like “Wow you made me feel like shit.” I don’t want to get too OK with myself, though, because I’ll probably never write a song again [laughs]. But I’m making a better day-to-day life for myself in my own way.

I think I know what you mean. Whenever I step out of the circle I’m most comfortable with – which is mainly women, often queer women – I realise I don’t fit into any of these moulds that I’m supposed to. And it’s about rising above that construct.

Yeah! And it’s not like in the band I wasn’t accepted… they were my friends. But I didn’t always feel comfortable. With my team now, they understand me and don’t and see me as something that needs to be made smaller. Now and again things hit me, and I realise that’s how I used to feel all the time. The other day, we toured with a band and I felt very worried about what I looked like, and that was in relation to what men thought, and I realised that was just a status quo.

So feeling it again suddenly makes me realise how much happier I am, which is a positive thing. But I’m still dealing with those aftershocks of learning how to live without people pleasing. But then I worry like ‘God, am I just a monster now? Haha, like Cruella de Vil?”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Lipsitz for CLASH

Let’s work our way to the debut Self Esteem album, Compliments Please. I feel that the album (released on 1st March, 2019) was robbed of a Mercury Prize nod! So complete and lauded was it, I did wonder why it was not shortlisted for that illustrious gong – I think Taylor felt similarly vexed and befuddled! One reason why the album should have been garnered with awards and prestige is that, for a debut album, it sounded like Self Esteem was this act/moniker that had been around for years and was hitting a peak. So rounded and strong was the album, the huge array of positive critical reviews should have given the likes of the Mercury Prize pause for thought. Anyway. I want to look at how Self Esteem is a very different beast to Slow Club. In the interview with The Line of Best Fit, it outlines a moment when we sort of heard shades (in Slow Club) of what we would witness with the introduction of Self Esteem:

“Perhaps this is why Taylor's voice now bursts out of her so loudly and strongly on Compliments Please. Slow Club wasn’t quite cutting it for Rebecca, because she wasn’t getting to do what she really wanted to vocally. “I’m very ambitious and I wanted more from the band. I still felt that one day my big break was going to come, and I felt like it didn’t. So I called a spade a spade and said, 'I love this band, but I need to go and try all the things I’d quite like to try here but I can’t.'”

This might be confusing to Slow Club fans who witnessed Taylor’s voice in full flow on 2014’s Complete Surrender. “It was a turning point,” she admits. “Around that time I had been through an awful relationship, and I’d come out the other side on an almighty high. I wrote a lot of that album off the back of that and I felt really galvanised, and we were starting to do television appearances as well – and I liked it. I wanted to push even it further into that fame, but that’s not what the band wanted”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Lipsitz for CLASH

Bringing in an interview with CLASH, and it is humbling and impressive to hear an artist be so self-deprecating. Self Esteem is not a major act in the same way as Taylor Swift or Dua Lipa is. One cannot call Self Esteem ‘niche’ or ‘underground’. I think that her more sophisticated and, perhaps, less commercial sound is one that is richer and more compelling than a lot of music in the mainstream. Self Esteem is an artist who, as she releases more albums, will accrue a massive army of fans and rub shoulders alongside the best of the best! I feel, as a songwriter and artist, Self Esteem is far more interesting than a lot of the world-famous artists. It raises the question as to whether we need to put so much emphasis on the huge Pop artists and shift the paradigm to more nuanced and less appreciated artists. In the CLASH interview, it does seem that, with Compliments Please, Self Esteem was making a statement of intent:

“I’m so lucky that if I write a song there’s a handful of people at least who will listen to it,” she says, with typically self-deprecating honesty. “Same with the gigs. If I’m going to play a gig and stand up onstage then there’s going to be a few people there who will watch it.”

“I did just start to get tired of not taking that as far as I’d like to because it’s an opportunity. Every time you get to do anything if an opportunity to make any kind of art. Fitting in those parameters… the ones I put on myself, like: don’t talk to much, or don’t be too crazy, or don’t share too much. I think I’m just bored and getting older, so I want to make things as big, bold, and beautiful and dramatic as possible.”

‘Compliments Please’ is certainly bold. From the nudity of its cover art through to the expressive lyricism its the sound of a potent pop voice pushing herself as far as she can go. That’s the thing with Rebecca Lucy Taylor: she’s funny and engaging, but beneath those jokes (so often at her own expense) lies a ruthlessly intelligent musical mindset, something capable of shifting and adapting to virtually any condition.

“It got to a point early last year where I was like, well, focus on what you’re good at,” she recalls. “And the tangible opportunity was that I had signed to a label and there was budget to make an album. I thought it would be nice to find focus”.

Out now, ‘Compliments Please’ is already defying expectations. It’s a rich, textual pop experience, influenced by Lady Gaga’s sheen and Kanye’s embrace-everything approach on ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’.

Take recent single ‘The Best’: “I really love that one, it feels really weightless. It’s a bit of a contrast to the other stuff, I always want music to be heavy and dark, but we made this song out of nowhere and I like how breezy it is.”

Album closer ‘On The Edge’ is a touching and direct finale, a point where Rebecca’s ever-present humour begins to falter. However even here there’s a playful touch: the distorted effects on such a simple song derived from Andy Kaufmann’s trick of making the TV broadcast of his comedy special come in and out of focus”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenn Five for DIY

I shall round off the Compliments Please mini-section with a nice interview that I found from Loud and Quiet. First, and bringing in an interview from London in Stereo, and the theory that, as you hear the album, one hears a new and extraordinary form of Pop. One reason why I love Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside – my favourite album of all-time – is that it is stridently and stirringly female and different. There are so many bold and unheard of themes in the album. Few Pop artists were documenting themes such as menstruation, lust and incest back in 1978 (or are today). Not that Compliments Please covers these subjects. What I mean is that it is a very real and open album that does not hide behind clichés or conform to expectations for a Pop record:

“And Self Esteem feels like a new kind of pop — not processed but something proudly, powerfully female. She told herself “if you’re going to do it make it really, really beautiful and powerful and evoke really soaring emotion in people” – and the album is full of gospel choirs, strings, striking vocals and syncopated beats. “I think ‘Wrestling’ was the first time I was like ‘This is what it sounds like’, and then to my mind I’d written the album and it was done. I’d been in a relationship and I was like ‘This is great, I can be in a relationship and still write an album’. I’d always thought I had to be in turmoil to write good stuff. So I thought I’d disprove that theory but then we did break up and I wrote ‘Rollout’, ‘In Time’, ‘I’m Shy’ – all of my favourites. I was, like, ‘Shiitt!’”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Charlotte Patmore

I think that Compliments Please was one of 2019’s best albums. Not only is the songwriting individual and hugely accomplished; there are a range of sounds and textures fused and entwining through the album. In an interview with Loud and Quiet, Rebecca Lucy Taylor outlined what she wanted to achieve with Self Esteem:

“Underneath these stones lie lush strings and big sentiments accompanied by drumbeats more in line with Destiny’s Child than Destroyer. Rebecca’s finally expressing herself one hundred per cent. “I started in the band when I was 16 with Charles and then Slow Club began when I was 18,” she says. “After that it just rolled on and on. I think as we never hit any heady heights there was nothing to fall from, it was a gradual thing. I knew that there were so many things that I wanted to do musically that wouldn’t fit there so I privately wrote songs and started making them with other people. It was always bubbling away but it never felt real or something I could do, I thought it would just be a one off bootlegy EP or something. It was after that third Slow Club album, we’d been on the telly and things got a bit more exciting, we were on a bigger label, I really loved all that and I would like to do that again. Charles didn’t love that and I couldn’t push him. I have this knot in my stomach all the time and feel bad about it. If I am being selfish about it, though, and maybe I should be, compromising your output since you were a teenager is not good for you and I didn’t realise that. I thought that was the nature of the industry but now all that has lifted away”.

The record subtly shifts through genres and influences that act as a clue to Rebecca’s development as an artist, something she’s open to exploring. “I want to keep Self Esteem bombastic and big, heavy and emotional,” she says. “But do I want to do the same thing for every album? Do you know, I can’t remember the last time I was listening to an album and then I couldn’t wait for the next one. The only example I can give you is Alisha’s Attic when I was 11 or something and I loved the record so much but then I was mortifyingly disappointed with the next? The only other artist that I can’t wait to hear the record of now is Perfume Genius. Isn’t that weird? I have just renounced all other music. There is something about the way he writes songs that I just adore. Sonically, he has progressed perfectly”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenna Foxton for Loud and Quiet

Even in 2019, there was a lot of demand for Taylor. She was keeping very busy and embarking on a number of different projects. I wonder, with a second album (potentially) on the horizon, we will get more side-projects from Self Esteem. Maybe a Table Manners-type (a podcast where Jessie Ware and guests talk about food and family) podcast or a short film. Just before getting to the review itself, I want to go back to the CLASH interview and why having a lot on the go was preferable and natural for Self Esteem:

“But then, Rebecca Lucy Taylor has every right to be selfish – after all, she’s in demand, with a host of projects set to dominate her time over the coming months. “I’m doing a musical,” she says. “I’m developing a musical at one theatre, and then I’m writing my own one, and then I’ve got another meeting about another one. I’m just basically trying to hustle so I can retire! And I love theatre, so I’m trying to combine the two.”

“I’m realising now how much I can write on spec. That’s why I like writing for theatre, because I love being given an emotion or a story that you need a song written about then I can actually do that.”

That’s quite a lot to take on, Clash states.

“Well, I always say if you throw as much shit at a wall…!” she laughs. “It feels a bit like that. But genuinely, that’s how I work. It’s constant and quick and doesn’t stop. So having quite a few things on is when I’m happiest. If I’m stuck on one thing and then waiting for another then I go a bit crazy. So I’m throwing it all up. We’ll see what happens. I hope I’ll get one legitimate job”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Lipsitz for CLASH

I am going to dissect and cover the lyrics for I Do This All the Time because, in the tsunami of positivity and affection the song has garnered, some common observations have been made. Many have compared it to the anthemic and mandate-like Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen) of 1999. That song is almost an essay on how to live life. You can learn more about the song that is narrated by Australian voice actor, Lee Perry. It sounds timeless because of its simplicity and the fact that we can all identify with the words of advice being offered. It is an emotional listen. Rather than parodying that song or repeating it, it seems like I Do This All the Time is a more personal version of that song. I also love the fact that the video for the single marks the directional debut of Rebecca Lucy Taylor. It is an accomplished and visually-impressive video that is striking and memorable! I do hope that there are more self-directed videos as, from the off, here is a new director who is as unique and affecting as a she is a songwriter. I Do This All the Time is a song that launches into the chorus. I have said how, with this song, we hear something more conversational and less bombastic. Maybe that cannot be said of the chorus, which is a bright and bold section of the song – the softer and narrated sections occur in the verses. I really like the video We start on a close-up of Self Esteem as she follows the lyrics with her physical actions: “Look up, lean back, be strong’/You didn't think you'd live this long/Be as one, hold on, steady stand/For as long as you think you can”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Bartolini

She does look and then leans back. The chorus sees Self Esteem looking into the camera and providing quite a thoughtful and serious look. It is only when the first verse arrives that we see her follow the song with her vocals. I like the close-up shot and the simplicity of the purview. It gives the video this intimacy, intrigue and power. If a song like Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen) is a more general look at society and advice for a broad range, I Do This All the Time is a more specific track. In the sense that it is closer to home where and we get this narrative, story-like, fluid arc. There is this Trip-Hop-esque beat that is a contrast from the rush and colour of the chorus. I think that Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s natural northern accent makes the lyrics sound even more engaging and rich than they would be a singer from, say, London. That may sound odd. I just think she has a great speaking voice. It is one that draws you in (I wonder if Taylor has considered doing voiceovers and audiobooks?!): “Old habits die for a couple of weeks/And then I start doing them again/This sun is making me feel like I'm missing out on something/But, if I went to your barbecue/I'd feel uncomfortable and not be sure what to say anyway/It's like when I go to your birthday/Drinks to congratulate you being the age I already thought you were/Or not, I don't know/It's a miracle I've remembered at all/When I'm buried in the ground/I won't be able to make your birthday drinks/But I will still feel guilty/You see, when the air warms up like this/It brings every single memory of you back/And it makes me so sick, I can't breathe/Except I am still breathing, aren't I?/Sometimes, I think that's the problem”.

Whilst the pandemic perhaps curtailed a video that matched the lyrics to the visuals, I feel the close-up on the heroine (who delivers this slight smile and captures you wholly) is much more affective! One focuses more on the lyrics; each listener can visualise the scenes and interactions. The verse-chorus-verse structure of the song means we get the impactful switch of the punchy and singalong chorus and the calmer, reflective tone of the verses. The camera pans out on the second chorus, as Self Esteem hugs a version of herself. It makes me think that this is a song with a very personal bent; Self Esteem talking to herself and offering sage advice. The second chorus is another filled with incredible images and pieces of advice: “Be very careful out there/Stop trying to have so many friends/Don't be intimidated by all the babies they have/Don't be embarrassed that all you've had is fun/Prioritise pleasure/Don't send those long paragraph texts/Stop it, don't/Getting married isn't the biggest day of your life/All the days that you get to have are big/Be wary of the favours that they do for you/They'll tell you I'm wrong, they'll tell you (I do this all the time)/They'll tell you I'm wrong, they'll tell you (I do this all the time)”. I love the chorus because, whilst it has an intensity, it is more choral than it is conventionally Pop. The vocal layers create shivers. In the video, we switch from Self Esteem and her embrace to a view of landscape and scenery passing by. We then cut back to Self Esteem standing alone. The image of her in an empty room narrating to camera is a very arresting visual tool that lingers long in the mind.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jenn Five for DIY

The contrast of he image-rich and slice-of-life lyrics and the elegant and slightly solemn video works wonderfully. The third verse is my favourite of the song: “All you need to do, darling, is fit in that little dress of yours/If you weren't doing this you'd be working in McDonald's/So try and cheer up, I'm not sure/You're moving around too much, you need to stand still/Be more like Mairead, shh/Stop showing off/You're a good girl/You're a good, tall girl/You're a good, sturdy girl/One day I would love to tell you/How the best night of your life/Was the absolute worst of mine”. I started by thinking that Self Esteem was speaking to her younger self and rueing the chance to be carefree and young. Maybe there was a slight recognition of being older and more responsible. As the song progresses, I feel it is more directed at a person. Maybe a lover. There is a lot of wisdom in the lyrics, though one cannot help but cast yourself in the song and seeing the interactions go down. Mortality, youth and living life in your own way will resonate with many. I do think that Self Esteem is offering herself advice. Friends are having babies and doing what society, perhaps, tells them they need to of. Not doing that is nothing to worry about.

PHOTO CREDIT: Parri Thomas for The Line of Best Fit

Whilst drunkenness and frivolity can be a little empty, perhaps living for yourself and not worrying about others is more important than feeling you have missed out. The fourth verse makes me wonder whether, again, Self Esteem is sending a message to her young self, or whether she is sending a message to her partner: “Now and again you make complete sense/But most of the time I'm sat here feeling stupid for trying/My hunger times, my impatience equals the problem/You're beautiful and I want the best for you/But I also hope you fail without me/It was really rather miserable trying to love you”. The lighting, colour scheme and camerawork in the video is beautiful. I love how the band are introduced towards the end of the song and we get this live element. The direction is wonderful. I love the expressions and acting from Self Esteem. I have gone back to the video time and time again. This review has been extremely long, I know! I think I Do This Al the Time is a song that warrants this sort of examination and passion. The lyrics are so nuanced and stunning, you will come back to the song repeatedly. Many people will be able to relate to the words. Whether you see the track as Self Esteem having a conversation with herself and offering some common sense and hard truths, others might have another person in mind – a once-loved other that is being gradually cast aside. I Do This All the Time is a wonderful first single from, I hope, a second album that will arrive fairly soon. There is a definite appetite for more Self Esteem music, that is for sure!

Whilst there has been no official date announced and a title regarding a second album, one feels that one will arrive before the year is through. Tour dates have been announced so, with that in mind, will we get a new collection of Self Esteem tracks to go alongside the magnificent Compliments Please?! Earlier this year, DIY chatted with Self Esteem. Even then, the germs of a sophomore album were being discussed:

“Taking all the emotional and psychological fuel gained from a period of “feeling so seen and authentic” into the studio with her, a summer of recording LP2 has now coalesced into an album that “turns the dial up on every component [of her debut] to 11”. “Instead of trying to change it up, I really leaned into the bits that I find euphoric,” she enthuses. “I’m really into extremes at the moment: if you’re gonna sing, fucking sing; if you’re gonna speak, speak clearly. There are no grey areas, and I’m enjoying the pomposity of it a lot.”

Yet if, musically, her latest is a riot of “enormous and choral and ridiculous” moments, then lyrically the singer is taking things to a different kind of extreme - pushing herself to talk about the complicated boundaries of sex and power that dominate our daily lives. “There’s songs about assault, songs about being oppressed by narcissistic men and all of that, but there are also songs about how much I love having sex, and how much I love my vagina. And it’s complicated because that’s what it feels like. Some things don’t make sense together, and some inform the others, but tough shit - that’s where I’m at,” she shrugs. “I don’t know the answers, but I’ve written songs about how I bloody feel and I’ve got a feeling that a lot of people will feel like that too”.

I shall wrap things up there. I do love Self Esteem’s music and, with I Do This All the Time, here is a song that is very much her - but also one that is different to past work. This past year has seen more talk-singing and narration make its way into music. Maybe this is artists (such as Dry Cleaning) wanting to converse with the listener or create something that is more ungarnished and direct. If the songs on Compliment Please were more fiery, compositionally powerful and bombastic, then I Do This All the Time points to a different landscape. Perhaps it is a red herring in the scheme of a new album; maybe a sign of diversification and broadening of the Self Esteem sound. It is very intriguing! I would urge everyone to seek out and listen to the new song. I am a little late to the party reviewing the track (as it is five days old), though I think I am the first to go pretty deep with it. I think the future is very bright for Self Esteem. If Rebecca Lucy Taylor felt that, with that moniker, we were hearing an artist who didn’t believe in herself as much as she should, I hope that the proliferation of praise her new single has received should give her pause for thought! It is another remarkable song from someone who seems to get better and better as time goes on. I am already excited to hear a new album and what we might hear. A multi-talented and multi-disciplined creative, with the always-wonderful Self Esteem, we have an artist who is…