‘ Blouse‘ really does feel like it has existed for years and this is very much a good thing. Nothing more is necessary to tell this story. The instrumental consists of just an Elliott Smith style acoustic guitar, quiet strings and gorgeous backing harmonies. The lyrics are heartbreaking and while her previous songs have felt honest, this feels more raw than anything she’s done before. “Why do I tell you how I feel, when you’re too busy looking down my blouse… If touch could make them hear then touch me now.” On my favourite song, ‘ Blouse‘, Clairo sings about the difficulty of being honest in a relationship when she feels constantly objectified. We all know the feelings that Clairo sings about but it’s not until she puts them into words that we realise how tricky this is to do while still being catchy and listenable. On ‘ Bambi‘, she sings ” I don’t like to cry before I know why But honestly, I might” and it’s this painful honesty that makes the album so special. The songs here are uncomplicated but warm and Clairo’s writing has never been more classic and thoughtful.
The production is, as expected from Jack Antonoff, wonderfully simple, and the music sounds completely natural, with no unnecessary bells and whistles: just Clairo’s excellent songwriting with acoustic guitars, lush pianos and strings and her hushed harmonies.
Her debut album, Immunity, was a departure from this bedroom pop sound, with some great indie-pop songs and, once again, Clairo has shaken things up again with Sling. It was fun and insanely catchy and currently has 244,663,081 plays on Spotify. On the cover of Sling, Clairo is cuddling her dog and this picture sums up the cosiness and loveliness of her most intimate project yet.Ĭlairo started making music when she was 13 and became loved after releasing ‘ Pretty Girl‘ in 2017, a song and video she made in her bedroom. “I never let anybody in / somehow you got under my skin,” she sings on catchy, upbeat swooner “North.” But if Immunity’s proof of anything, it’s that it's ready to let everyone in all at once.George Ward gives a review of Clairo’s latest album, Sling. Which are things I don’t always feel, but listening to those songs make me want to dance around my room about how happy I am that I see the world this way and that women are beautiful.” You’re not having to change the pronouns to make it about yourself,” she told I-D in an interview in May. But it was important for me to repurpose that sadness in a way to create space for me and other people who were also going through it… by singing a song that’s made for that and not made for a straight couple. “When you’re discovering your sexuality, it can be a really hard, sad, lonely process. But even with all that going on, at a famously universally confusing stage of life, Clairo’s emerged from it all with self-assurance and lucidity, ready to celebrate and share even the trickiest parts of it. Between being pined after by major labels, gaining over a million instagram followers, managing the demands of touring with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, publicly coming out (“I'm still not really sure what my sexuality is, but I do know that it's not straight," she told Out), and facing a wave of criticism regarding the validity of her success, it’s safe to say she's been through it. In between her “Pretty Girl” days and Immunity, Clairo was thrust into a forced self-actualization process at a break-neck speed. And while that carries with its own narrative, its own beauty, it makes it all the more jarring that every word out of Claire Cottrill's mouth on Immunity is crystal clear.
It’s a stylistic choice as close as you can get to those adolescent moments you wished you were invisible. In her earliest recordings (singles like “Get With U” and “2 Hold U”), dreamy synth lines and muddy percussion cloud the atmosphere and her voice falls into the background, often reduced to an unintelligible whisper. Two years later, she’s releasing her Rostam Batmanglij-produced debut on FADER Label due out August 2. In 2017, after about 3 years of putting her home recordings on the internet, the homemade video for her song “Pretty Girl” - which is now up to over 36 million views - went viral basically over night. At just 20 years old, even before releasing her debut album, Clairo’s already had the kind of career that most teens making pop songs in their home and putting them on the internet could only dream of.