In a post-internet age, authenticity can be hard to decipher — especially when there’s an added spotlight. However, attention and praise haven’t phased South London singer-songwriter Lola Young and her penchant for what’s been deemed “ill-advisedly honest” directness — a quality potent in both her sharp-tongued lyrics and fluid alt-pop sound. And this rawness is more prevalent than ever in her latest album, This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway, which blurs the lines between a rageful breakup compilation, and nostalgia-steeped scrapbook. The album opens with the track “Good Books,” and the line, “I gave you an ultimatum/‘It’s me or the weed,’” finishing with “Outro,” which ties up the project in a tactile, inherently human bow — and the final lines, “I can too be my one and only true love/That I can learn to heal alone… what I’m truly trying to say is to anyone that’s ever hurt me and thinks these songs are about them/This wasn’t meant for you anyway.”
Young’s music is overflowing with a no-fucks-given attitude that actually comes from anything but lack of care or effort — rather, it’s a pulsing strength that’s come from overcoming, and battling struggles, from a broken heart to her mental health struggles, and diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. With her new album, built out alongside friend and collaborator Solomonophonic (Remi Wolf, BROCKHAMPTON, Dominic Fike), there is a felt shift in Young’s work from her last project, 2023’s My Mind Wanders and Sometimes Leaves Completely. The shift isn’t in a new direction, per se, but on This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway, Young tapped inward, with more force and fearlessness than ever.
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Against Solomonophonic’s larger-than-life, groovy, and grunge-tinted audible backdrop, she balances humor and depth, snarkiness and open-hearted confession, with an air of confidence that is purely cathartic for the listener — and we can only imagine has been for Young as well.
I want to start off by asking why you called your last release a “project” rather than an album, and what changed since, so that you’re comfortable claiming this one as such?
This one is an album, for sure. My last one was called a project because I felt like there was too much pressure — the pressure of being a debut album. I wasn’t at the point in my career where I was comfortable calling the work an album. When it comes to This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway, it’s as much about the level of music here as it is in the level of belief I have in the music. I really believe that this is a great record, and I feel more proud now than I did previously.
Between the two projects, what do you think has changed sonically, and what do you think changed about you that took you to a place where you’re creating work you’re so proud of?
Maybe two years ago, I cut my hair. That was a turning point for me because I was having issues with some of my team and people I was working with about my hair and my style, and I thought, “Fuck it, I’m just going to cut my hair.” I cut a shag, and then I eventually went to this kind of mullet style — that was the shift. The action does carry a little bit of a shift, I believe, in your mentality. Obviously, hair is more of a metaphor, but I do think that just generally making that drastic change said, “I need to step up now.” I can’t be who other people want me to be. I started believing in myself more. So that was the change.
Think of all the memes about cutting your own bangs — it’s a trademark response to chaos, however unhinged. But I can vouch for the shift that a hair change can bring. Just the other night, I felt off, and I ran out for box dye. I dyed my hair bright red at 1 a.m., and it definitely did something. There was a tiny jolt of confidence, power.
It definitely helps to really realize what space you’re in, and it either goes one way or the other. Either you’re in a really unhinged place and you are trying to make sense of something, or you are trying to rediscover yourself. To answer about the shift in sound on this album, the sonics have changed massively since the last project — but it’s still in the same world, if that makes sense. A big part of why the production feels slightly more heightened is Jared Solomon [known by his stage name Solomonophonic], who is an incredible producer. And I still work with Conor [Dickinson] and Will [Brown], who are also incredible producers, too.
What comes first for you in your process — the sound or the statement? Melody or lyrics?
To be honest, it’s both at the same time. It’s hard to decipher which one comes first. A lot of my stuff is freestyled in the beginning, so with “Big Brown Eyes,” I was singing the lyric, “You can eat shit.” That melody came with the lyric, and I was like, “OK, what’s going to follow that?” It eventually molds and blends together. Both of them are important to me — but I’d say lyrics are slightly more important. But I don’t think it’s a massive walk!
With such honest lyricism, what are the challenges? How did they show up on this album?
The challenges are that I always want my lyrics to be perfect. That’s the one thing I’m a perfectionist about. People get pissed off at me because I’ll sit in a room. I’ll be like, “No, we’re not stopping until those lyrics are right.” I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the melody if the lyric isn’t poignant. So I’ll spend hours on this, and that’s the main challenge. Getting it right. And I’ve always been direct and honest, though the music has become less metaphorical than ever. So I’ll say, “You can eat shit because you fucked with my plants” and reference a real person that comes to mind. It’s just saying how it is. The verse can be quite direct. Then the chorus is going to be metaphorical, because otherwise, I may as well just be talking to somebody. There’s got to be that contrast, but I always try to be as honest as I can.
This is a question that I ask people all the time, but do you think that having pain or having gone through pain is required in order to make good art?
Hands down, yes. You look at the old music, the blues, and hear sorrow. I think blues is the best music about pain. Maybe pain doesn’t have to be there, but without having experienced pain, we have no happiness. It’s yin and yang. And for great artists, there’s got to be pain somewhere, because what else are you writing about? You can’t be happy all the bloody time. That’s just so boring.
What would you say if you had to describe this album in one sentence?
If you don’t like it, it wasn’t meant for you anyway.
That’s good. You’ve got some relationship songs on deck — breakup songs, love songs, things like that. What do you think sets your tracks apart from all the other love or breakup songs?
Well, it is my experience of what I’ve gone through, and that’s what separates it from the rest. But there’s also a cheekiness and edge. I have a song called “You Noticed,” and the first lyric is, “You said the perfume I was wearing smelled like Jo Malone and I’ll never forget that/It was just some cheap shit I found at home,” and that’s setting it up. That to me isn’t really honest because I used to only wear Fantasy by Britney Spears when I had no money. I still love the smell. And I remember an ex, or a guy that I was seeing, said it smelled like Jo Malone. I’m just flipping it slightly. So it’s direct, but it’s got that deeper meaning.
What’s your favorite song on the album?
It changes. I’m loving “Good Books.” It’s got quite an anthemic sound, but I do think in terms of the bigness of the record, my favorite is “Crush” and “You Noticed.”
What are you hoping people feel when they listen to the album?
I hope they feel understood because I think it’s mad. I was talking to this about my manager, but going through the process of making an album is quite draining. But then when you feel the relief when it’s out and so it is no longer yours, you’re going to have people relating to it. I just want people to feel like, “Oh, my God, I get it and I get her, but I also get myself a little bit more,” and that’s what I feel when I listen to any good music. I’m like, “Oh shit. I didn’t know that about that person, and I also didn’t know that they could know that about me.”
What do you think the biggest misconception about you and your music is?
Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know if this is just from my perspective, but I think it’s more that I have this insecurity, like, “Shit, is my music?” I don’t make trap. I don’t make bubblegum pop. It’s quite alternative. But that’s more of an insecurity than a misconception. I don’t really know what the misconception would be, but I think maybe something about my mullet.
I guess the misconception is just that your music fits easily into one genre box, which I don’t know if anything does anymore. One other question that I have is you’ve spoken out about mental health and also mentioned TikTok and social media. What’s the relationship between the two, if any?
My mental health disorder is quite acute, and it’s quite rare. Talking about misconceptions, the misconception about my mental health disorder is this taboo around it, which isn’t necessarily around depression — because it’s under the umbrella branch of schizophrenia. And I’ve been manic onstage. I’ve been manic on Instagram posting things, and people don’t really understand. The two sides of the coin around social media, and in particular TikTok and mental health, is that everyone is claiming it. Everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to certain disorders, but when it comes to schizophrenia, nobody’s commenting on that. That’s a bit hard for me. But the positive is that at least it’s being talked about because it decreases the stigma. So that’s my take on that. Managing it all has been hard, but I am on meds — though I think there’s a stigma around that, too — and medication has saved my life many times.
Do you read the comments when you post?
Nah, I try not to. I pinned some funny ones, though. Someone said “female Russell Brand.” And, this is a good one, I had one that said I looked like the fucking “girl from Hereditary.” And I thought, “That’s so rude. But that’s so funny. Where do you guys come up with this stuff?” The hate used to get to me a bit, and then I thought, “Fuck, you guys are hilarious.”
