I don’t know why this annoyed me so much. I’m fine with her not releasing something for a while, tunnel is still very fresh. Also, I don’t mind her creative vision shifting. But girl, either do it or
don’t say anything
I can definitely see her pivoting a little since country has went SO mainstream at the moment
she’s never been a trend chaser and is definitely hyper aware of her standing with the critics, so I can totally see her getting cold feet with this now just to not be compared to Beyoncé, etc.
I made this little video I wanted to share of parallels I noticed while she was speaking after accepting her award this year compared to how she spoke after accepting her award for Next Big Thing & Video Games also at a ceremony held at the Grosvenor House in 2011. In both years, she talks about how she feels about accepting awards, understanding the industry, touring, and reacting to negative articles written about her, but her answers are very different over the 12 year span. You can really see her growth in her self-confidence and it's beautiful to see, even in just the way she speaks and her answers to the questions. I love her so much
I could totally be wrong about this lol but based off what she said before and after the metaphor about the glass ship
I think she's talking about the next stage of her career and everyone assuming that her playing Coachella means she's going to keep going bigger and bigger (like with stadium tours) but what she really wants is to be at home with her family, and have smaller shows where she can have more interactions with the locals there, etc. so if the "new ship" is the next stage of her performing career, then maybe the "glass ship that can fly" is to do the next stage of her career in a way that hasn't been done before
Like the typical route of a pop star vs the different route she wants to take that isn't so typical of singers at her level, but she doesn't know exactly what that is yet
Transcription of her speech that I just completed:
"Thank you, and I'm honoured to be given my award by Jody Gerson, the chairman of Universal Publishing. Wow. I brought this up because I wanted to show you, I don't know if you can see. It says this was a 500-quid ad from my managers. I'm so proud of you and grateful for our 15-year friendship and journey together. That's 15 years of friendship from the same two managers. Ben Mawson, right there, and Ed Millett, will you stand up please? Music is hard but my managers have made it very easy. I love them. I love Jody. I have never had one glitch in my career in terms of my friendship. I've been with Polydor for 12 years and Interscope for just as long. Ben Mortimer and Steven Hallowes, thank you for being just like Ben and Ed, my dearest friends. It's amazing. I have so many things to say. Let's see. I mean, I was here 12 years ago. That's amazing. 12 years, still kicking. Not everybody is born with a passion. Not everyone is 3 years old and says, 'I want to be on Broadway!' Passion is fleeting. I don't always wake up and think 'it's so amazing that I'm still in music.' The muse is very fleeting and when those years happen it can be years. I just think to myself when I don't feel passion, what I'm going to focus on is doing a job well done and if that's not enough I do other jobs and then I come back to music and I just think that's really important because not every day is the same and one of the mottos that I go by is 'I can start my day over any time I want.' If I'm having a bad day, I start it over at 11:55pm. If it didn't go well then, I'd gotten an article written that I don't like, I think I can take a walk in the park and remember that I can start my day over at any time I want. Also, is Paloma Faith still in the room? I think I might have seen her leave, but I just wanted to say Paloma, sweetheart, that was such a good speech. I'm so happy you're here. When I had my first video out, you already had videos out, and I think it's so cool that she took a moment to say that and also, okay, a couple of things. So, when I came, when I started, I think a lot of things were written about how the songs were sort of navel-gazing and just about me and my experience with challenging relationships and now I think what we've seen is that those songs were not written about a small microcosm of people and women. We're seeing a huge amount of things written about difficult relationships and even when COVID began, the second epidemic in the United States was interpersonal relationship violence. It increased by 300%, so I just think it's amazing that female singer-songwriters have the freedom to write about absolutely whatever they want. It was always a little nerve-racking to think that writing about the relationships or maybe something that could be seen as self-gratuitous or feigning vulnerability. I heard that a lot. I mean, it is a very vulnerable thing not just for women but for men. I've learned so much in the past few years from my peers about having a challenging time in music, and like someone said my friends are doctors too, so it's not just limited to music. Okay. Yeah. There's one really important thing. So, 15 years ago when I met Ben and Ed I had already been singing in the United States for 8 years. They let me come live with them. I was up and down Kingsland Road for two years here. I didn't know anybody and I don't drink so I had absolutely no friends. It was really, really, really hard except for knowing them. I literally just flew from headlining a show in Alabama where my sister's children are from and to Louisiana where my brother lives with his wife. So, because of a lot of people in this room you gave me a career here which also allowed me to go back home where I had been trying to sing for at least 8 years. So, thank you for letting me be able to sing at the Opera House in Paris and also to go back to Alabama. It's amazing I get to go wherever I want whenever I want. I decided not to do a stadium tour this year because I want to go McCreary Country in Kentucky. I want to go meet the people. I want to say hi and have breakfast with them. It's not always about just going north and going to every island straightforward and picking up money at the stadiums. It's like I said to Ben, you know, after Coachella everyone kind of treated me like a brand new artist, you know? Like, 'oh, she's back!' I said it's like being in a new ship, but I don't just want to go forward and do a stadium tour. I want to figure out how to turn into like a glass ship that can fly, and I don't even know what that means yet, but I'm going to find out, and sometimes that means just stopping and listening to my heart and it's not always about music. It's about thinking about whether what I'm saying is actually matching up with what I'm doing. I could say I want to go on a long stadium tour, but in my heart what I really want to do is be with my family in Alabama and be with my managers in London and the people that I've worked with have given me the freedom every single year with every record. No deadlines, no pressure, so I that I have enough time to listen to my heart and be available to the people around me so I get to make music, and I know it's long winded, but anyways, thank you! Thank you so much!"
