FEATURE: Spotlight: Amelia Moore — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Amelia Moore

__________

SUCH a great time for new music…

there are some remarkable artists emerging and growing that are adding something special to the scene. One artist that everyone needs to know about is Amelia Moore. The U.S. songwriter is a true phenomenon. I want to address a few interviews that she gave in 2022. This year is one that she will definitely make a big mark on. Before I go on, here is some biography about the amazing Amerlia Moore:

“Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Amelia Moore creates the kind of visionary alt-pop that both defies all expecation and feels immediately essential. In a whirlwind journey she describes as “homeschool to Hollywood,” the 21-year-old Georgia native got her start singing in the church choir as a little kid, followed her dreams to Los Angeles at age 18, and soon attracted a massive following on the strength of her bold but vulnerable songwriting (a feat that includes gaining over 50,000 followers on Spotify before she’d even officially released a song). True to her TikTok and Instagram handle (@icryatwork), the 21-year-old artist approaches all her music with a fierce commitment to total emotional transparency—an irresistible counterpart to her kaleidoscopic and endlessly unpredictable sound.

Originally from Lawrenceville (a town outside Atlanta), Moore grew up in a conservative Christian household and first discovered her natural musicality by singing in the choir and taking up violin at age five. But despite her immense talent on the violin, she felt compelled to expand her horizons. “From a really young age I felt creatively trapped and knew I wanted to write my own music, so I quit violin and taught myself piano on a cheap little Casio keyboard,” she says. Also a worship leader at her church, Moore began writing her own songs at age 13 and within two years joined an Atlanta-based artist development training program to sharpen her vocal and performance skills. When her parents refused to pay for the program (“I remember them telling me, ‘Maybe music can be a hobby, and you can be pharmaceutical sales rep instead,’” she recalls), Moore got a job at a fast-food chain and raised the money on her own. “It completely changed my life—from then on I believed in myself 1,000 percent,” she says.

After graduating from high school at 16, Moore kept on writing songs and ventured into producing for other artists, then enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville. “It was the craziest culture shock I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she says. “I went from being so sheltered to being surrounded by kids who are all drinking, partying, hooking up, and pretty quickly I started questioning everything I was raised to believe.” As she broke out of her shell and adjusted to life on campus, Moore continued collaborating remotely with her longtime friend Austin Sanders (aka ASTN, a Florida-bred singer/songwriter), and soon began heading to L.A. for co-writing sessions. During her first trip, she crossed paths with up-and-coming producer Pink Slip and instantly felt a potent creative chemistry, striking up a collaboration that endures to this day. Halfway through her sophomore year, Moore dropped out of Belmont and moved to L.A. on her own—then found herself frightfully adrift when the pandemic hit just two months later. “Any opportunity I’d had to play shows or put a project together fell apart so fast,” she says. “Like so many other people, everything I’d been working toward was swept out from under my feet.” Determined to move forward, Moore immersed herself in writing and refining her vision for her debut project, and eventually began sharing her songs on TikTok. Within the very first week of posting her original material, she’d amassed over 100,000 followers drawn to her unaffected yet magnetic presence and fearlessly honest perspective—a turn of events that ultimately led to her signing with Capitol Records in fall 2021.

Released in October 2021, Moore’s debut single “sweet and sour” is an intoxicating first glimpse into Moore’s untamed imagination and overall mission as an artist. “One of my main goals is to elevate what we expect from pop artists, and usher in a wave of weirder, edgier, more left-of-center music with production that’s really crazy but also refined,” she says. Produced by Pink Slip, “sweet and sour” fulfills that ambition by delivering a stark yet explosive collage of sonic details: shadowy beats, jagged guitar tones, sudden shifts in texture, a gloriously fuzzed-out and frenetic outro. Meanwhile, its lyrics speak to the sheer power of embracing your own complexity. “This song is a perfect statement of who I am as a person,” says Moore. “For the most part I’m a total angel and super-sweet, but the second you mess with me or any of my friends, that’s all over. It’s kind of a warning to everyone, telling them to be careful and tread lightly, or else they’ll get the sour.”

Naming hyper-inventive artists like Frank Ocean, SOPHIE, Kanye West, and Flume among her inspirations, Moore continually feeds her creativity by seeking out boundary-pushing musicians and soaking up inspiration from art forms outside music. “One of my favorite things is to go to museums by myself, put my earbuds in, check out the art and ask, ‘How can I make a song that feels the way this looks?’” she reveals. And with her debut EP due out next year, Moore is intent on merging her wildly original sound with lyrics that encourage listeners to fully live their truth. “I hope my songs make people feel powerful, and inspire them to believe in themselves and trust their gut no matter what everyone else is doing,” she says. “You really can alter your reality, and it’s completely up to you to make that happen”.

With a stunning E.P., teaching a robot to love, released last year, we got this incredible offering. One of the finest E.P.s of last year, it proved Amelia Moore is an artist to behold. DORK interviewed her in June. I have selected some sections to highlight:

“All that aspirational dreaming ultimately led to the stunning series of songs released in the last six months that have got people so excited. Amelia Moore makes big music. Big dramatic, emotion-laden music with an expressive, dynamic future-facing flourish. She uses her voice as an intensely powerful and malleable instrument full of personality and texture. On songs like ‘Sweet and Sour’ and ‘Vinegar’, you can hear an artist working at the midpoint of Charli XCX-style sonic innovation and Mariah and Ariana-style vocal masterclasses. It’s an intoxicating mix.

There is a rawness and directness to the music on her debut EP. “This project is my perspective on falling in love for the first time and what that was like as a homeschooler who was just learning a lot about the real world growing up,” explains Amelia. “Unfortunately, it was a negative experience, as you will hear in the music. This first project is really an exploration of me learning a lot about the world after growing up very sheltered. It’s me growing into myself. Since being away, I’ve grown into myself more as a person and artist. I feel so connected to the music because everything I’ve learned about has happened so recently, so it still feels very real to me. It’s like an open wound.”

In the studio, Amelia channelled all that emotional vulnerability into the music. “There were days when I would walk in and just absolutely sob, and they would just hold me on the couch before I could write anything,” she says. “I learned to not overthink too much in the studio, and the music that connects with people the most is just honest and vulnerable. It’s really important not to shy away from anything, be honest with yourself and be real. Even teasing some of these songs on the internet now people have really connected with some of the moments that were just conversations in the studio.”

Online teasing is a big part of the buzz surrounding her like it is for many artists in the social age. “In December 2021, I started taking my social media really seriously,” she says. “I posted this song about moving away from all of my best friends in Nashville to LA; it was literally the first original song I posted on TikTok. Within a week, I gained over a hundred thousand followers. It was insane. From that point on, I continued to post my original music, and people seemed to like it. That moment in December when things really started to kick off on social media was a big moment for me.”

Amelia has already released three statement singles, but she says the EP will highlight a different side to her artistry. “I have a lot of different sides to me that people are yet to hear,” she says confidently.” I love making more R&B influenced music. I’m very inspired by a lot of R&B singers. There’s also some raspiness in my voice on this project that nobody’s heard from me yet. I’m excited for people to hear that.”

The reaction Amelia has had to her first few songs is based on universal feelings of deep emotion that we can all relate to and learn from. “I hope people take away a feeling that if you’re trying to teach a robot how to love, you should probably just do yourself a favour and pack up and leave,” she laughs. “Sometimes we’ve just gotta learn what it feels like, and it’s ok, but going forward, let’s notice the red flags, feel all of the emotions but save ourselves the heartbreak. Being in love with somebody should not feel like you have to teach them how to love”.

There were a few interviews out in June 2022, as that was the month teaching a robot to love was released. Wonderland. chatted with Moore about her debut E.P. and what her mindset was going into it. They also asked what she wants to achieve in the future:

“Hey Amelia, how are you? How has this past year been?

I’m doing great! My dreams are coming true, baby!

With everything that happened during the pandemic, how has your creativity been affected?

I learned to enjoy writing by myself. I used to avoid it at all costs, but now it’s one of my favourite ways to write.

And talk us through your journey, how did you first get into music, and what sparked your interest?

I played the violin for seven years starting at the age of four before I taught myself piano. I was really involved in theatre and choir programs at my church as well. I thought I wanted to be a Broadway star but I realised I’d rather be myself and sing my own songs on stage than pretend to be somebody else! I really started taking it seriously when I was 15.

And now being managed by the team behind BROCKHAMPTON, how did this venture come about?

I met my manager Brian Washington through another client of his, who also happens to be one of my good friends! We’ve accomplished so much in our first year together; I couldn’t have asked for a better coach on my team.

Now you’ve dropped your debut EP, talk us through your mindset going into it?

HA. You know, agony, heartbreak, drama, frustration – I was going through a breakup that should’ve happened way before it did. I was emotionally exhausted and really just needed an outlet to express how I felt. Shoutout to all my best friends – who also just happen to be my collaborators – for listening to me cry over the same guy for two weeks straight!

And looking back, what was the most challenging aspect?

Showing up at the studio the day after this breakup happened. Looking back through it, thank GOODNESS I was able to keep myself busy and make use of everything I was feeling.

What do you hope people take away from your music?

I hope they learn from my mistakes! If you see any signs of a robot babes, run. GET OUT OF THERE AS QUICK AS YOU CAN!

Who would you say inspires you?

Aside from my musical heroes, (Justin Timberlake, Kanye, Lorde, Frank Ocean), my friend Jbach is such an incredible writer and a really great friend to me. He’s so himself, all the time works so hard and I’m always so inspired when we write together. Love you, Jonathan!

What is next step for you? What are you most excited for?

A couple more singles this summer, hopefully another tour, potentially a mixtape and teaching a robot to love was about an experience I had…but I’m excited to show everybody a bit more about who I am”.

Before rounding off with a review of the incredible teaching a robot how to love, there is another interview that I want to include. The Forty-Five spoke with someone try to reinvent Pop. Amelia Moore, as someone who was home schooled, has used music to figure things out:

“At 18, Moore left home to study commercial voice at University in Nashville and quickly experienced a massive culture shock. She’d grown up being homeschooled, as had her friends back in Georgia. “I show up to college and everybody believes something different, everyone’s wearing different things, people are hooking up with each other, people are drinking – I didn’t realise that existed at all,” she explains. “After my first semester, I was just asking myself, ‘Amelia, were they the ones that were raised differently or were you?’ It was definitely me!”

Being homeschooled, she says, has allowed her to have a different, unique perspective on the world that’s encapsulated on ‘Teaching A Robot To Love’.

“This project is the exploration of all of these feelings of falling in love for the first time and stepping outside of my shell and really figuring out who I am aside from growing up the way that I did, because I’m a completely different person,” she says. “I’m assuming growing up in high school you have a bit more of an understanding of the real world and what life is actually like. As a homeschooler, I was sheltered and just had no idea about anything. This music is me figuring it out in real time.”

While she was still in her first year of uni, Moore visited LA for the first time, met her collaborator Pink Slip, “learned more in a week of sessions than a whole semester on campus” and quickly realised that was where she needed to be. She quickly dropped out and headed to the west coast, desperate not to waste any more time in a place that wasn’t right for her.

In California, she went through another culture shock – this time with the fake people she’d meet at parties. “You have a really good conversation with them and they’re like, ‘Oh what’s your Instagram? Let’s stay in touch’,” she says with an eye roll. “I distinctly remember hitting it off with somebody and they handed me their phone so I could type my Instagram in – they saw how many followers I had, which was maybe 6,000 at the time and were just like, ‘Oh, cool…’ and walked away.”

The joke is very much on that person, though. When the pandemic hit shortly after Moore arrived in her now-home city, she turned to posting her songs on TikTok in a bid to get herself out of a pit of depression. The first track she uploaded on the app did better than she could ever have imagined, scoring her 100,000 new followers within a week.

Despite TikTok’s prevalence within the music industry these days, there’s still some snobbery around artists that get discovered on the app. That’s something that made the musician hesitate over sharing her creations on it at first because she “didn’t want that judgement”. “But once I realised how to make it work for me, I didn’t care if anyone was judging me,” she says. “I was like, ‘This is working, people care about my music now. Say all you want, I’m going to keep posting regardless of what you think’.”

Now, she’s on course to achieve her grandiose goal of reinventing pop, as reinforced by ‘Teaching A Robot To Love’, which is both accessible and infectious, but feels thrillingly new and interesting. “I’m really inspired by artists that bend genres and don’t stick in a certain box,” Moore notes. “People like Frank Ocean and Kanye who’ve always been really, really ahead of their time. I just want to keep pushing the boundary forward with almost abrasively honest lyrics and experimenting. I’m really excited to experiment with some R&B-hyperpop-sounding things – I want to be the first artist to really do that on an album and just make whatever I feel like making”.

I will round things off with a review for teaching a robot to love. It is a brilliant E.P. that capped off a terrific year for Amelia Moore. This is what EUPHORIA. had to say in their review of Moore’s debut E.P. It is one that everyone needs to hear:

“Amelia Moore single-handedly faceted a musical genre all her own appropriately adorned with avant-garde touches and a futuristic flair. Likely one of the most versatile songwriters of our generation, Moore presents the seven-track EP teaching a robot to love — arguably the strongest debut project any artist could wish to make. Aesthetics aside, the singer boasts a striking set of vocal chords offering a next-level listening experience able to keep up with the likes of Ariana Grande.

teaching a robot to love sets itself apart mere seconds into song one. From the minute long prelude “intro” into track two “moves,” Moore creates an impressively sublime transition between techno, R&B, and pop in under 3 minutes. Alongside renowned producer Pink Slip, the singer manages to produce a groundbreaking identity as hyper-pop’s edgy, darkened twin. Where alternative sounds meet experimental spirit, Moore shines like a star.

While “moves” is the ideal chill track for a feel-good moment, songs like “crybaby” take on a moodier (but still incredibly catchy) tonality. Moore masters the careful art of layering harmonies flawlessly; frankly, there’s nothing quite like a tune with the artist’s best skills at the forefront.

Put plainly, her voice is the star of the show. EP standout “teaching a robot to love” shares its title namesake for a reason: the number is the embodiment of everything Moore’s complex vocals are capable of. Between Billie Eilish-esque whispers swelling into resounding symphonies and traces of robust whistle notes, the vocalist establishes herself as music’s ultimate shapeshifter.

“This project is the culmination of first love, first loss, and the recognition that love is what separates us from the robots,” Moore states in a press release. Halfway through the EP, listeners earn insight into the message behind her lovestruck madness with “IFE_outro_V4_AM_24b.wa.” Talking to who we can assume are other producers in the recording studio, the songstress inquires, “So it’s like, can you really not feel anything? Or are you just afraid”.

If you are new to Amelia Moore, make sure you follow her and check out her music. This year is going to be a great and big one for her. She made big leaps last year, and I think this is going to continue. A lot of people are tipping her for enormous success through 2023, and you…