FEATURE: Spotlight: Nessa Barrett — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Saravo

Nessa Barrett

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AS I continue to recommend…

PHOTO CREDIT: Derrick Freske

great artists who will make an impression this year, it takes me to the wonderful Nessa Barrett. Someone who is tipped for great things, the New Jersey artist is a magnificent talent. At a time when so many incredible, strong and promising young artists are emerging, Barrett is a revelation! I want to bring together some interviews that introduce Nessa Barrett. I remember discovering Barrett’s E.P., pretty poison, coming out. I had not heard of her before but, after one listen, I knew that she was a major talent. EUPHORIA. interviewed Barrett in 2021. As she began to break through that year, this interview introduced us to a remarkable artist:

“Nessa Barrett, in the weeks following the release of her debut EP Pretty Poison, is gearing up for the ultimate “pinch me” career moment — two back-to-back, sold-out headlining shows at the Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles. The attendees who were fortunate enough to land tickets will see the tracks on the EP performed for the first time, but the upcoming dates don’t quite feel fathomable yet to the budding star hitting the stage.

“I had no idea what to expect. I don’t know how anyone would want to see me singing, but it’s honestly amazing,” Barrett tells EUPHORIA. “I just know that because it sold out so fast that the energy at those shows is going to be unreal, and I can’t wait to perform for them to give them the show that they wanted. It’s going to be the first one ever that anyone’s ever seen me, so I think that’s crazy.”

While it might come as a surprise to Barrett, it doesn’t feel so shocking to anyone who has watched her rise. Her lead single from the EP, “i hope ur miserable until ur dead,” accumulated more than 31 million streams after hitting a viral note on TikTok, with two other EP tracks (“keep me afraid” and “grave”) also joining the millions club, with 2.8 and 1.7 million streams, respectively.

Though her already massive listener base feels likened to that of an established star, Barrett is still finding her footing in the music industry, particularly in the explosive dark pop/pop-punk space, which naturally comes with some nerves. Barrett, however, is grounded in security when it comes to her debut. “I used to get so nervous about performing, but now I’m at a point where I’m looking forward to it,” Barrett explains. “And that feels really good.”

And Barrett is coming out of the gate ready to bare it all. Pretty Poison is a heart-wrenching and, ultimately, a tell-all body of work about the toxic relationship that led to what she now considers her “happy ending.” She is emotionally beyond the events that the body of work chronicles, and performing the tracks in the shoes of her “past self” might take some of the pressure off of wearing her heart on her sleeve while performing live.

She also recognizes the magnitude of support in the audience of these shows. These crowds are likely to be filled with authentic, connected fans of Barrett’s, creating a safe space for her to explore her bounds as a live musician, a writer, and an artist, more broadly. “I could be scared because of how vulnerable I was with the EP but at the same time, if I was going to be vulnerable with anyone, it’s going to be with the people that have made me who I am today,” Barrett says.

Prior even to the announcement of these live dates, though, Barrett had already been thinking about what Pretty Poison meant for her as a human being, ready to move on, and an artist, ready to begin an era. Where she landed after the EP was somewhere in the middle of that; while she has definitely closed a door on the moment of her life that Pretty Poison chronicles, releasing the EP ultimately propelled her into her next body of work.

As an era, Pretty Poison serves exclusively as a debut, but there wasn’t a need to second-guess whether it was the right first move.

“As a new artist, I think something like releasing an album is so exciting, and I was always excited to have a big body of work to release to the world,” Barrett explains. “But when it came to if I was going to do an EP first rather than an album, it was almost obvious which one it should be … I knew what my album was going to be about and the story that I was going to tell with it, but I wasn’t at the place to tell it yet. There was this story that I did tell with my EP that I was ready to move on from and to share my truth with.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Derrick Freske

Though Barrett might not relate to the songs anymore — some carry raw lyricism that feels microtuned to a cathartic moment in time while she was writing — it still felt therapeutic to release them into the world after getting some time with them on her own. A piece of what makes Pretty Poison a truly impressive debut is Barrett’s ability to both feel the pain of the experiences intensely while also introspectively understanding that they are just that: experiences.

But as mature as her ability to work through her trauma with music is, it couldn’t negate the fear that came with putting the product of that into the world — at least, at first.

“It was kind of hard because it came from a place of being very vulnerable, and all the songs are just so personal to me,” Barrett says. “Being able to sacrifice that and having it out for the world to hear was kind of hard, initially. But I was able to have it made up in my mind that, more than anything, this is art, and I’m going to share with the world and that’s kind of what helped me.”

Healing beyond that narrative was always intended to be the scope of the project. “Now when I think about it, all I see are these amazing songs,” Barrett explains. But it was the EP’s title, which was tattooed on Barrett prior to the work’s conception, that came just after the story. From there, it was essentially a domino effect, propelling Barrett into lyric ideas, song title brainstorms, strategies for ordering the track list.

Then came the music.

“I just kind of wanted my emotions to be heard before anything else and I wanted people to pick up on that more than anything,” Barrett explains. “And whenever I hear a sound or something and we choose to put certain things into the production, it all has to do with what type of mood that I’m in.”

It’s precisely that process that led to the “moody” final product, as Barrett describes it, and it already varies from the music that put her on the map, to begin with. “Pain,” her debut single, was a soft ballad that provided a glimpse into Barrett’s croony vocals, but when compared to “sincerely,” the last track on her EP with a similar sound, Barrett sounds like a different artist entirely. She no longer needs to prove that she can do it; now, she is showing everything she can do as a vocalist but, even more prominently, as a lyricist”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tyler Joe

Seventeen spoke with Barrett this time last year about new music, mental health struggles, and her relationship with boyfriend Jaden Hossler. Following a promising 2021, she was primed for even greater things last year:

“This is not a tale about a pop star who wants you to think her life is perfect. This is the story of Nessa Barrett, the New Jersey native who rose to TikTok fame at 17-years-old and moved to California to pursue a singing career. This is about a girl who, even with 26 million followers on social media, an EP with over 425 million streams and a tour under her belt, still deals with many of the same things young people today face. Like a lot of young people, Nessa struggles with her mental health and body image, and worries about what other people think about her. It's her willingness to get real about it with her millions of fans which makes her so admirable and someone they want to look up to.

“I’m trying to break the whole standard of how life is perfect, when it’s not,” explains Nessa. In a world of curated feeds filled with posed photos, the 19-year-old’s corner of social media is honest and emotional, with posts about anxiety and her struggles with borderline personality disorder (BPD). “I wish that I had a person that was releasing music or openly advocating for mental health, to [help me] realize that there's a lot of people that go through it. If I saw an artist that was successful and they still dealt with mental health, then I would have known it was okay for me as well” she says.

For Nessa, it’s music that enables her to be so open and real with her fans. “Songwriting is the one thing that makes it easy for me to open up and to express myself,” she explains. Now, with the upcoming release of Nessa’s newest single, “Dying On The Inside,” Nessa talks to Seventeen about what self-love really means, her relationship with boyfriend Jaden Hossler, and how there’s no such thing as perfect.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tyler Joe

Seventeen: Last year you released your debut EP, “Pretty Poison.” Why did you decide it was time for you to get your music out into the world?

Nessa Barrett: I was dealing with life experiences that I felt like I needed to address and just let out. It was very important for me to tell my story, so we created a song for basically everything that I went through. I write such personal music, not only for myself, but for other people.

17: Your song lyrics are so personal. What do you hope people take away from your music?

NB: I honestly hope that anyone that needs help will listen to my music as a way to cope and know they’re not alone. I know everyone struggles, and [my music is] talking about real life things that really affect people and their mental health. I want to break the whole idea of perfect standards and how life is perfect for some people, when it's really not.

I guess that's my biggest hope, for people to know that it's normal and that they're not alone and that it always gets better”.

17: Obviously the pressure of social mediaeal with. How do you deal with it?I

I don't really know if there's a certain way to handle it. Everyone is different. I feel like I'm still experimenting with what to do. I've been working with my therapist on this, and we do this thing called “fact checking.” I'll read a comment that's very negative, that my emotional mind would get a hold of and be like, "oh my god, this is true." But I take a second to be like, is this really true? If one person comments this, does this determine my self-worth, does this determine my self-love, my confidence? Is this supposed to be my identity from now on, based on this comment? No. It's all about fact checking and you have to give yourself that 10 minutes to be like, this is not true. Even if it was true, it does not matter. Because it's just one comment, and you have your entire life, full of so many things, and that one single comment does not mean anything.

17: What’s one thing you want your fans to alay remeber?

NB: Life can suck for everyone. It's life. You have to go through problems but you become stronger, and that's how you form your character and you become a person. You're not alone and it's okay to deal with things. It's okay to be human. I feel like we've lost that recently with society, everyone wants to be some perfect robot or something, but no. It’s okay to be human”.

In October, Nessa Barrett released her album, young forever. I will come to a review for one of the best albums of last year. An album that keeps varied and moves through different sounds and moods, it is a masterful work from a supremely accomplished artist! FAULT featured Nessa Barrett in promotion of the album. They asked her which of the songs on the album was most emotionally challenging to write:

“The album can shift genre from track to track – is that by design or just reflective of your personal music tastes?

Nessa Barrett: I love that you say that because I truly never want to be put in a genre box. This album is fully manic in the best way & honestly reflects moreso my emotions / how diverse my palette is. I would say my personal music taste is also not put in a box so unintentionally reflective I would say!

Can you describe your headspace when writing fuckmarrykill?

Nessa Barrett: Very much a “fuck everything, i just want to sleep” mindset. This song had the most production changes to get right. It was pretty uptempo but felt right slowing the whole beginning down.

Dear god displays a lot of vulnerability as have previous releases such as ‘die first’ – is it ever daunting to leave so much of yourself on a track for people to observe and possibly even critique your outpouring of emotion?

Nessa Barrett: Music is my therapy. I write about real emotions I go through that really represent where I’ve been emotionally & my journey through it all. I put out my art to the world so people feel like they aren’t alone – in hopes my music gets them through their times as well. I’ve always felt like it was my calling to help people in such way.

Does that outpouring of inner-most feelings ever leave you emotionally fatigued?

Nessa Barrett: Definitely after certain sessions, same with how I feel after therapy sessions. They go hand-in-hand for me.

What would you say was the most emotionally challenging song to write on the album?

Nessa Barrett: I would probably say “die first” – mostly because of the concept behind the song. It’s so powerful. Even more emotional now when I have to perform it than when in the writing process.

Would you say there was a theme that runs throughout the project and if so what would it be?

Nessa Barrett: Visually the album feels very heavenly, angelic. At the time of writing the bulk of the album, I wasn’t in the best place mentally.. I was living in hell, so I fantasized about heaven a lot – which is why it really represents that. This album takes you through a journey & I am so excited to see how people resonate with it.

PHOTO CREDIT: Beth Saravo

As we look ahead, I feel that artists like Nessa Barrett will help to shape the sound of Pop. At only twenty, she already sounds so complete and assured. It is going to be so thrilling to see where she heads next. The Bubble were among those that reviewed the majestic and amazing young forever.

“Nessa Barrett’s debut album Young Forever made its premiere on the 14th of October this year, and presents a powerful commentary on mental health, in particular borderline personality disorder (BPD) which Nessa has openly spoken about struggling with. At only 20 years old, Nessa first gained fame through Tiktok and currently has a follower count of 19.6 million. She has released music in the past – her first EP Pretty Poison in 2021- which discusses toxic relationships and how mental health plays into such relationships. Young Forever, however, takes a more sophisticated turn and starts to address more profound issues such as depression, suicidal thoughts, the power of social media, and religion. Nessa has always used her platform to discuss her struggles with BPD and eating disorders, however this album in particular is important in many ways for her young, primarily female, fanbase.

Mental health is the album’s overriding theme, which is immediately evident through her choice of song titles. For example, gaslight is a pop-song looking into how a partner calls her ‘’crazy’’ for going through his phone despite him being the one who has cheated on her. Lyrics such as: ‘’why do you tell me not to worry when you always F’ing hurt me’’ and ‘’turn me to a girl I don’t wanna be’’ address a shared experience that people go through in relationships where their partner cheats. The striking piano rhythm enforces this and gives the song an on-edge feel while the repetition of the word ‘’why’’ continues to cement a feeling of confusion.

Another song that stands out is talk to myself, a song about Nessa feeling like she is her own worst critic and that nobody else could insult her the way she insults herself. I think that this track will resonate with most people, as we often criticise and judge ourselves more harshly than we do others. For example, the lyrics ‘’if you talk to me, like I talk to myself, I’d give you the finger, I’d say “Go to hell’’.” Music can be incredibly cathartic for both the artist and the listener, and Nessa’s focus on mental health in a relatable and accessible way goes a long way in helping people understand that it’s normal and okay to feel like this. So often influencers feel detached from the ‘’ordinary’’ person, yet this album, particularly this song, opens up the discussion of how it doesn’t matter if you are conventionally pretty or successful in life; mental health affects anyone and everyone.

Relationships are a common theme within pop albums generally, and this record is no different. Songs such as unnecessary violence address the many ways that toxic relationships can contribute to negative self-worth and mental health. However, what is unique is that throughout the album, Nessa also plays into the importance of self-love. In this way, unnecessary violence, with its lyrics such as ‘’And if I ever get happy, I can count on you to put me through your, unnecessary violence’’, directly contrast lyrics like ‘’I’ve never looked better than this,’’ in too hot to cry. This contrast is powerful as it encourages listeners to think about unnecessary opinions, especially when it comes to strangers on the internet. Why do we place so much value on what others think of us? Of course, that is not to say that feelings are invalid because, as she says in unnecessary violence, ‘’words you speak are killing me violently’’. This dilemma expressed through her music clearly displays the reality of mental health and issues within relationships; you know someone is wrong for you, but you can’t help but be sucked into this cycle of ‘’unnecessary violence’’.

What is also interesting is that Nessa shows that relationships do not need to be romantic to be ‘’toxic’’. Most of her songs can easily be interpreted as being about the internet and ‘’hate’’ more generally, or about herself and how her own mind is violent. That is what I love about this album. She leaves it up to the listener to resonate in any way they feel fits, which can be vital in helping people to feel understood and not alone.

Religion is a sub-theme found in the album, and Nessa addresses the toxicity of her relationship with God throughout her mental health journey, and thus connects all the above-mentioned themes. Dear God is a song about feeling like she doesn’t even ‘’fit into heaven’’, a place that is supposed to be a perfect utopia. This is perhaps one of her most intricate songs; she uses symbolism in lyrics such as ‘’angel wings sewed on to [her] back with black ribbon’’. This symbolises how one may feel rejected from happiness while also recognising feelings of inevitable failure. The phrase ‘’Black ribbon’’ evokes images of darkness, an image painted continuously throughout this album. Songs from other artists such as Demi Lovato’s Happy Ending (with lyrics such as ‘‘I met God… sat in his house… and saw I didn’t fit in’’), discuss this same feeling of not fitting into heaven, but perhaps the overall message from these albums is that this idea of a ‘’utopia’’ is not comforting for everyone, and it is okay to feel this way”.

Go and add Nessa Barrett’s music to your collections. A wonderful artist whose music will instantly seduce and hook every listener, there is no wonder she is being discussed as one of the most promising artists this year. With an exceptional album in the world and more music planned, the awe-inspiring Nessa Barrett is…