During the making of her third album as Self Esteem, the songwriter Rebecca Lucy Taylor was struck by an uncomfortable realisation. This would, in all likelihood, be the last record she releases in her 30s. In 2026 she turns 40: in the eyes of the music industry she will soon be a woman of a certain age. “I’m 38 putting this album out now, and the album was made with this ticking clock – banging, not ticking,” Taylor says.
“And why? Ed Sheeran doesn’t feel like that. David Grohl doesn’t feel like that. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. It sounds crazy, because I subscribe to ‘my gender doesn’t matter to me’. So I was, like, ‘It can’t be that.’ And then the penny dropped. And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s because I feel like, societally, I’ve got a couple of years maximum to make all the music I want to make, before I’m considered not worth listening to’.”
She can take heart from knowing that the new record, A Complicated Woman, is the best she has made as Self Esteem. An absorbing blend of confessional songwriting, escapist disco and harrowing electronica, it is superior even to Prioritise Pleasure, the breakout 2021 hit that earned her a Mercury nomination and was heralded by the NME as “assured and unapologetic”.
But in addition to being as catchy as anything, it is a fascinating portrait of an artist who experienced “overnight” success in their mid-30s and found the resultant attention both thrilling and overwhelming.
Taylor has never been one to hold back. On Prioritise Pleasure’s lead single, I Do This All the Time, she spoke frankly about emotional neediness and the unhealthy tendency to compare ourselves to others (“Stop trying to have so many friends/Don’t be intimidated by all the babies they have”).
The lyrics were deeply personal, yet she was struck by how universally they resonated – a fact she was reminded of when she sang the song at a 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium when opening for Blur in the summer of 2023.
She is equally forthright on A Complicated Woman, which opens with the meditative I Do and I Don’t Care, a spoken-word piece in which she goes back and forth over whether she wants to be defined by her professional accomplishments. She does, she doesn’t ... She is Schrödinger’s pop star: ambitious yet entirely aware that the music industry is manipulative and uncaring and that everyone is destined for the scrapheap in the end.
It is a remarkably confident song about having no confidence whatsoever – a contradiction that has fuelled much of her best work as Self Esteem. Still, while insecurities can make for a potent artistic aid, out in the real world they’re not a lot of fun.
The age thing is wild. The way it’s been a real battle for me to get certain things. I’m often told it’s because I’m my age or the age of my fan base. And I just don’t think Ed Sheeran has been told that
Those anxieties meant that when Prioritise Pleasure became a hit, she seized the opportunity with both hands and drove herself to the limit. She toured constantly, cowrote the official World Cup song of the England 2023 women’s soccer team and even branched into acting when taking on the Liza Minelli role of Sally Bowles opposite Jake Shears, of Scissor Sisters, in a West End revival of Cabaret.
Friends told her that she risked burnout. She didn’t listen. “I never had holidays. I never had breaks. I was so bent on this goal. So my management, everyone ... we all got used to the fact that I don’t like to rest,” she says.
Taylor takes full responsibility. Success was dangled before her, and she went for it, consequences be damned. “It was my mistake. The people that loved me [were] saying, ‘This is too much now.’ And I was like, ‘Never.’
“I burned out properly. I went really brain dead. I can’t remember a lot of it. I couldn’t think any more. I made this album from that place, which is a weird thing to say, because obviously it’s full of ideas.”
She felt pressure to live up to Prioritise Pleasure. As a woman in her 30s having hits, there was the expectation that she would represent something bigger than herself. It comes back to the double standards. Ed Sheeran is a 34-year-old red-headed bloke, but nobody expects him to be a spokesman for 34-year-old red-headed blokes around the world. Not so for Taylor.
“The age thing is wild. The way it’s been a real battle for me to get certain things. I’m often told it’s because I’m my age or the age of my fan base. And I just don’t think Ed Sheeran has been told that,” she says.
In a previous life Taylor fronted the folk-influenced indie duo Slow Club. Formed in Sheffield in 2006 by Taylor and Charles Watson, they arrived late during the era’s “landfill indie” movement, the often-derided rock renaissance that produced The Libertines, The Fratellis, Kaiser Chiefs and dozens of other bands we might not mind never hearing again.
Why would I have thought about giving up? Because it’s not a place for us. It was never a place for us. That’s the reason you don’t see female headliners all the time
Slow Club sounded nothing like those groups. If anything, their melancholic vibes positioned them as bedfellows of folkies such as Fleet Foxes, but landfill indie was the defining sound of the era, and Taylor and Watson were part of the scene. They had some success: an early talking point was that Daniel Radcliffe, the Harry Potter actor, was a fan.
But, over time, punishing touring and the uncertainty of the lifestyle – you never knew if you were going to make enough to pay the rent – got to Taylor. Her sense of isolation was heightened by the fact that she was often the only woman in the tour van.
“I loved what we made. I did have some fun. I was just so frightened. And, again, that bit of me that didn’t understand, did not process that I wasn’t the same as the boys. And so I couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to tour America in a van and sleep on floors.”
A weird thing about landfill indie was that some of the acts seemed to be pretending it was 1972 and they were Led Zeppelin, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. There was a big culture of groupies and a lot of drugs. Slow Club were much too sensible for either, and Taylor knew there was an unhealthy attitude towards women. But she tended to direct her feelings inwards; on the single In Waves she depicts herself as a vibe-killing natural disaster prone to “turning up at parties like a hurricane”.
“Some people think my lyrics [in Slow Club] are really hard on myself. I was complicit in a system. And when it was good it was good. You know, if the band got opportunities because some bloke somewhere fancied me I was, like, okay, great, let’s play the show. It was just another thing I didn’t understand. All this anger and unpicking it is what Self Esteem seems to be.”
While nobody would claim the music industry is perfect, things are perhaps improving. Chappell Roan is one of the headliners at this year’s Electric Picnic, for example. It’s unthinkable that the festival could have gone ahead without a big female artist – whereas a decade ago nobody would have blinked. “Every year I get asked to talk about how there’s no females on some [festival bill],” she says. “I’m, like, ‘Cool.’ I’m glad that’s a talking point.”
She believes that it’s simplistic to blame festivals, however. It is the music industry more generally that has failed to invest in women with the potential to become future headliners. “The thing I always say about that is ... it takes most people 10 years at least in their career to become an artist that would headline. All these successes have been doing it for years.”
The trouble is that it can be hard for female musicians to stick with it for that long. “In terms of mid-level venues and safety and travel ... I have been on tour for 15 years, very frightened for a lot of it about my safety. Or even as little as dressingrooms that have no mirrors or toilets; there’s only a urinal back there. It’s granular-level things like that which make women f**king give up.”
There were occasions where she considered throwing in the towel. “Why would I have thought about giving up? Because it’s not a place for us. It was never a place for us. That’s the reason you don’t see female headliners all the time.”
She knows A Complicated Woman is a strong album, but those insecurities are always nagging away. Just as she had finished the LP, Charli XCX blew up with Brat, and suddenly Taylor felt hugely out of sync with pop’s prevailing trends. The summer of Brat was upon us, and we were all expected to be our finest shambolic selves.
“I was freaking out, because I love Brat. And I was, like, ‘Oh shit ... no one wants songs about being okay and just trying your best.’ It’s not my fault that that’s where my brain sometimes goes. I don’t know any female artist that doesn’t end up in that sort of [place] sometimes. It’s because the industry has made women feel like there’s one in, one out for decades.
“Again, with all things for my mental health that are positive, that are useful, I sort of remember them for a bit and then, pouf, they’re gone. That’s one. But I am sure boys feel like that. I’m sure Mumford & Sons are worried about what Coldplay are about to do.”
A natural straight-talker, Taylor takes honesty to the next level with A Complicated Woman. On the single 69, for example, she runs through a laundry list of preferred sexual positions while a Giorgio Moroder-style dystopian disco beat rages in the background. A few journalists have wondered if she is nervous about potentially oversharing. Her question is whether anyone would ask that of Prince or Madonna.
“The truth is that I don’t say what I mean to people much in my life. I’m a real people pleaser. I’m still weirdly shy. I realised a few years ago that the songs sound like they do because that’s the only place I say what I mean directly. You can’t come back at me. That’s why it sounds like it does. I’d love to just write songs about, you know, having a nice day with my girlfriend.” She pauses and smiles. “I’ll leave that to Ed.”
A Complicated Woman is released on Friday, April 25th
