Gracie Abrams releases sophomore album, ‘The Secret of Us’

Gracie Abrams needs she may say she was born a performer — that so long as she will bear in mind, all she wished to do was sing for individuals.

As an alternative, she wrote songs alone in her bed room, petrified of displaying them to anybody.

“I used to be singing as quietly as doable in order that nobody may hear me,” the 24-year-old singer-songwriter says. This sentiment lingers in her early discography, light in its instrumentation and whisperpop lean. However her sophomore album, “The Secret of Us,” launched Friday, reveals little such restraint.

“This album, it’s louder, as a result of I used to be touring whereas I used to be making it,” she stated.

On high of headlining reveals for her debut album, “Good Riddance,” the Grammy finest new artist nominee final 12 months supported Taylor Swift on the North American leg of her Eras tour — now the highest-grossing live performance tour of all time. In these stadiums of 70,000-plus individuals, Abrams stated, feelings had been at full quantity.

“It’s like a secure area to really feel every little thing very loudly,” she stated. “The enjoyment was infectious, and I feel that actually seeped into this album.”

“The Secret of Us” is a musical sucker punch, setting the moody outpourings of a 20-something girl to spirited guitar strumming and raspy background vocals. Written largely by Abrams and her longtime buddy Audrey Hobert of their shared L.A. house, it “embodies all of the breathless urgency of spilling your coronary heart out to your closest buddy on the finish of a whirlwind night time,” a press launch stated.

Whereas her early songwriting is closely autobiographical, Abrams stated she sees “The Secret of Us” as a novel: dramatic, narrative-driven, and holding a plurality of experiences.

“We completely took seeds of fact after which leaned into the drama of falling in love in your 20s and the way bodily that feeling is,” Abrams stated. They wrote “Threat,” the album’s first single, in August, and within the days that adopted, Hobert stated she may hardly sleep.

“I’ve simply not felt something like that earlier than in my life,” she stated. “Writing collectively is not like any drug that exists on the planet.”

If “Threat” was the crack within the dam, then writing the remainder of the songs was like catching falling water: “All the things simply form of got here in a single fluid movement,” Abrams stated.

She attributes the velocity of the mission to her consolation along with her collaborators, Hobert and Grammy-winning producer Aaron Dessner, each of whom she considers household.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t inform both of them, so it makes it straightforward to be utterly open when writing,” Abrams stated.

“With Taylor [Swift] as effectively, once we had been writing our track, it was like, once more, nothing you wouldn’t say,” she added.

Swift collaborated with Abrams on “Us,” the fifth observe from “The Secret of Us.” With its cinematic percussion and hovering vocals from each artists, the track is a rightful keeper of the titular lyric: “Surprise in the event you remorse the key of us.” Its references to “sonnets” and “Babylon” are additionally becoming for Swift, whose personal notorious Observe 5s typically wax poetic.

Like “Good Riddance” — and Swift’s “folklore” studio classes — “The Secret of Us” was recorded at Dessner’s Lengthy Pond Studio in upstate New York. However the latter marks the primary time Abrams has taken a hands-on function in manufacturing.

“Once we had been at residence writing a whole lot of the songs on simply acoustic guitar, I felt like I may hear the entire completed product in my head,” she stated. Dessner, who “has no ego about something,” was predictably supportive, “which is epic, as a result of I do know that’s not all the time the case, particularly from producers as established as he’s.”

“At no level did Aaron ever make me really feel like I used to be intruding or not skilled sufficient. He simply inspired me from the second I walked in,” Hobert echoed.

Throughout visits to Lengthy Pond, Hobert and Abrams burst in on one another’s solo recording classes and downed tequila photographs between takes whereas Dessner laughed alongside, filming the duo’s most amusing moments. When he turned in early, they stayed up dancing to the demos.

“It is a totally different form of launch,” Abrams stated, “as a result of I get to rejoice it with my finest buddy each second alongside the way in which.”

The 2 shared the stage Monday for a last-minute, invite-only present on the Echo, “Gracie & Audrey.” The occasion drew round 300 followers, a lot of whom sported Abrams’ trademark hair bows.

On the set listing had been a number of tracks from the brand new album, together with “Blowing Smoke,” whose biting line, “If she’s received a pulse she meets your requirements now,” drew a handful of gasps. However the gem of the night time was the nearer that was seven years within the making.

Abrams first posted a 30-second snippet of “Near You” on Instagram in 2017. The synth-pop observe — which some have likened to Lorde’s “Melodrama,” launched the identical 12 months — shortly turned a fan favourite. Since then, Abrams has recurrently fielded pleas for a full model.

“I didn’t need to launch it for seven years, which is why I didn’t launch it for seven years,” she quipped, a smile creeping throughout her face. “Although, they had been proper.”

“Near You” acquired over 3 million streams in its first day on Spotify, changing into her finest performing single upon launch. It’s additionally her first solo track to debut on the Billboard Sizzling 100 chart.

It’s unusual to see followers rallying so arduous for a track she wrote when she was 16, she stated, “however I f— love them for caring.”

Evidently, that love is requited. When presale went dwell for Abrams’ the Secret of Us tour earlier this month, her Sept. 11 present on the Greek Theatre offered out inside an hour, so she added a second night time — then, a 3rd.

“I knew that we had Night time 2 in our again pocket, however not Night time 3,” Abrams stated. She was shocked when she noticed the Ticketmaster queue, which was almost 4 occasions the amphitheater’s capability.

They might’ve upgraded the venue, “however I don’t need to skip steps in that method,” she stated. Plus, for an artist who grew up in L.A., it doesn’t get extra magical than the Greek.

She’d play wherever, although, on the situation that her followers had been there to sing again to her.

“So long as they’ll have me, I’ll do that.”