Last April marked the first time since 1984 that no women landed a solo single in Billboard’s Top 10. Most of the divas of just a few years ago have faded or cultivated distribution channels outside radio airplay. When women crack the upper reaches of the charts nowadays, it’s almost always via second (or no) billing on a star producer’s track: Zedd and Alessia Cara’s “Stay,” Kygo and Selena Gomez’s “It Ain’t Me,” DJ Khaled, Bryson Tiller, and Rihanna’s “Wild Thoughts.” The improbable exception? Songwriter-turned-singer Julia Michaels, whose “Issues” bubbled almost all the way up to the Top 10 in a sea of dudes.
Michaels wasn’t exactly a newcomer, having written several pop tracks like Hailee Steinfeld’s self-love-via-”self-love” anthem “Love Myself” and most of Selena Gomez’s recent work, like the teasing “Hands to Myself” and crushed-out Talking Heads flip “Bad Liar.” What’s remarkable about this isn’t that Julia Michaels has successfully crossed over from behind-the-scenes songwriting; artists have managed this since Motown and probably before, and Michaels had all the support majors can buy. What’s remarkable in 2017 is that she did it without a decades-long label tenure like Sia, a high-profile vocal feature like Halsey (unless you count an uncredited Cash Cash spot, which you shouldn’t), or a pile of gimmicks like Meghan Trainor, whose early singles were practically storyboards for future thinkpieces. And what’s especially remarkable is that the singles Michaels released have bucked all the radio trends except the ones she started. They’re sparse in sound, confessional in story, and barely removed from their acoustic beginnings. They are, for lack of a better term, singer-songwritery.
This isn’t uncommon. Almost every pop writer, from Bonnie McKee to Stefani Germanotta, begins as a traditional acoustic artist, the kind who 20 years ago might have played Lilith Fair. Michaels is no exception; her influences include the unquestionably legit likes of Laura Marling and Fiona Apple, and pop-rock tracks like “Next to You” could easily have fit in on the soundtracks to “Dawson’s Creek” or even “Buffy.” But today, while male singer-songwriters have no problem charting (or, in Ed Sheeran’s case, being four-fifths of the charts in the UK) female singer-songwriters struggle, and adapt. What might have been released as an acoustic ballad 20 years ago is more likely today to be absorbed into an EDM topline—think David Guetta ft. Michelle Branch.
Michaels’ early career whiplashed between both poles. On the one hand, an album of sedate piano ballads she likened to a bunch of Australian singer-songwriters (”Issues” was particularly well-received Down Under, where she’s now touring). On the other, the “Austin & Ally” theme and a breathtakingly cynical cut-rate ”Tik Tok” for “The Hills.” But when launching a solo career, like launching a brand, lack of cohesiveness is death. So on Nervous System, Michaels’ first EP with Republic, she blends the two with promising results.
Besides “Issues,” produced by former Dr. Luke protege Benny Blanco, Nervous System is largely the work of Michaels’ core collaborators: co-writer Justin Tranter and producers Mattman & Robin (Carly Rae Jepsen, Tove Lo). Michaels’ influences are in there if you listen—in particular, the pizzicato strings of “Issues” and jaunty dysfunction of “Just Do It” suggest someone who’s spent a good year or two with Regina Spektor’s Begin to Hope. Likewise, “Don’t Wanna Think”—her take on Rihanna’s “Higher” with furiously played piano and self-referential lyrics—is songwriter’s songwriting: an acoustic portfolio piece. But most of Nervous System is far less polished, both as songwriting and as pop songs: production restrained where it might have been blown out, hooks delivered in low-key sotto voce, and lyrics first-thought-best-thought with words spilling out of the confines of their choruses and snapping at the ends of their verses. At best, the effect is disarmingly plainspoken when her asides and quirks are left in rather than sanded off. At worst, it leans a bit too much into the accept-me-at-my-worst confessional that’s become (fairly or not) singer-songwriter cliche: tell rather than show. Parts of “Issues” and “Worst in Me” might as well be SongMeanings explanations of “Fast As You Can.”
A current of bleakness has run through pop radio for some time now, and Michaels shares her part; singles like her “Surrender,” Gomez’s “Good For You” and Norwegian newcomer Astrid S.’s “Hurt So Good” are shot through with despair, sometimes intentional, sometimes not. But while those singles certainly achieve the desired effect, Tranter and Michaels are best when goofing around—like on the deeply dumb, kinda fun “Pink.” “There’s no innuendos, it’s exactly what you think,” Michaels whispers after a series of innuendos, with the deadpan mock-seriousness of someone who’s explained “Love Myself” to the press one too many times. The punchline? A chorus of scuzzy, breathy electro, but played more as goofy than seductive.
”Uh Huh” takes a standard campfire-strum of a pop ballad and dents up all the edges: verses strewn with dissonant plinks at the too-high end of the piano, voice contorted into a vocoder glissando, a chorus full of gleeful yelps, and about four lines’ worth of lyrics packed into where the hook would go. It’s perhaps the most shambolic song released to pop radio in 2017, and sounds nothing like its company—but its form perfectly matches its crushed-out, breathless subject matter. It doesn’t play like a hit at all, but neither did “Issues.” The songwriters who have succeeded tend not to be those who’ve tried to replicate the hyper-polished, machine-slick pop material of their clients but those who revel in unapologetic, relatable messiness, whether it be Sia’s cultivated camera-shyness and deeply uncool yet lucrative Clarissa Pinkola Estes flavor of self-help or Kesha’s scrappy party-runoff aesthetic—glitter, trash-bags, and human teeth—that kept devotees around well after the last drops left her bottle of Jack. Michaels, with her modest persona and writing style she likens to therapy, best fits this company, a promising sign for the future.
