That confrontational sound took a very long time to seek out. Born and raised in Rotherham, a comparatively sleepy Yorkshire mining city, Taylor had her first breakout second as one half of the folksy indie pop duo Gradual Membership, whose average successes arrived throughout the heyday of “indie sleaze”—a scene infamous for its boy’s membership vitality. Taylor has spoken eloquently and infrequently of the misogyny she skilled as an up-and-coming musician in a band, and that she confronted once more—albeit in a distinct kind—whereas placing out as a solo act a decade later, in 2019, when releasing her debut album, Compliments Please. “I’m so bruised by my profession up till now that I’m nonetheless struggling to grasp this model of it, the place individuals are really going to return to see you,” she displays. “Cash goes to be made. You can also make artwork and somebody’s going to care about it. That was the dream. I’m dwelling the dream, whereas additionally being like, Is that this the dream that’s occurring proper now? Does anybody know?”
Taylor is referring to the head-spinning success that accompanied Prioritise Pleasure, and its lead single, “I Do This All of the Time”—an replace of Baz Luhrmann’s “All people’s Free (To Put on Sunscreen)” soaked within the petrol of millennial angst and set alight through an unforgettably rousing refrain. (If it catches you at a fragile second, anticipate to weep.) Whereas her profession as much as that time was hardly a failure, earlier than her second album, Taylor was extra more likely to be booked for gigs at libraries and early afternoon competition slots—though, even then, her ambition and keenness for spectacle as a performer at all times outstripped her means. “I normally described Self Esteem exhibits proper at the beginning as like doing the Tremendous Bowl in Camden Barfly,” she says, with a chuckle. “It was me and two women doing little dance strikes in shit bars. I had left the indie world the place making an attempt onerous was frowned upon, and so I used to be like, I’m simply going to fucking strive onerous.” With Prioritise Pleasure, she was catapulted to the sorts of phases she’d at all times dreamed of.
It was all the things she’d at all times wished, till she realized it wasn’t. Within the whirlwind yr that adopted, full of promotional appearances, late-night exhibits, and continuous performing, she discovered herself staring down the barrel of complete burnout. What saved her, considerably counterintuitively, was the West Finish. In 2022, Taylor composed the soundtrack for the award-winning, Jodie Comer-starring manufacturing of the Suzie Miller play Prima Facie, whereas in September 2023, she started a six-month run as Sally Bowles in Cabaret underneath her authorities title, reverse Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears. For the primary time in her life, Taylor says, she discovered a semblance of interior peace. “I’ve been pondering so much about it so much, as a result of I would like many extra a long time of this profession, however it will probably’t kill me any extra,” she says. “How do you obtain that? With Cabaret, it was wonderful as a result of I used to be getting a paycheck, which I noticed psychologically felt like security. I noticed a part of what had harassed me out on a regular basis, and what I’d at all times simply struggled to explain, was simply being freelance.” Additionally, having the ability to relinquish inventive management was life-changing—although after a couple of months, the itch to carry out her personal music once more appeared to return. “I actually missed it,” she says. “I believed, I actually wish to do this, however say what I must say as nicely.”
