Tag: Eliza Shaddad Just Goes to Show

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Eliza Shaddad Releases Minimalist Visuals for Gorgeous Yet Sparse Album Single

Over the past few years, I’ve written quite a bit about the acclaimed British singer/songwriter and guitarist Eliza Shaddad — and as you many recall, Shaddad released her full-length debut Future earlier this month to critical applause from a number of media outlets. That shouldn’t be surprising as album singles My Body,” “This Is My Cue” and “Just Goes to Show” revealed an artist, whose sound draws from trip-hop, indie rock, grunge rock, 80s and 90s movie soundtracks, pop and folk in a cohesive fashion; but most importantly, the album is centered around some of Shaddad’s most personal and unabashedly honest songwriting to date. 

Interestingly, the album’s latest single, the intimate and slow-burning “(To Make It Up To You)” is something of  a departure from the album’s previously released singles as its centered around a sparse arrangement consisting of Shaddad’s plaintive and aching vocals accompanied by strummed guitar. Lyrically, the song may arguably be the most unabashedly honest songs as its narrator recognizes that they’ve had a lengthy pattern of making the same time-worn mistakes without learning much from them, managing to blindly and selfishly hurt people, who she cares about — and alienating herself from a chance of happiness. As a result, the song’s narrator finds herself full of regret and missed chances, asking for forgiveness and a chance to get it right; however, there’s this sense that the forgiveness and understanding she’s asking for, she may never receive; and that sometimes a relationship has been permanently altered. 

The recently released video for the song employs an extremely simple concept: Shaddad earnestly performing the song in an equally sparse setting — a white studio in which she wears a white shirt and black pants. Unsurprisingly, the video suggests that the song comes from a deeply personal and lived-in experience. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Eliza Shaddad Releases 90s Rom-Com Inspired Visuals for “Just Goes To Show”

With the release of her first two EPs Run and Waters, the London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Eliza Shaddad quickly rose to international prominence, receiving praise from a number of major media outlets including The Fader, Nylon, Stereogum, The Line of Best Fit, The Independent, Clash, The 405, as well as airplay from BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1Xtra, Beats 1 Radio and countless others for a sound that some have compared to the likes of PJ Harvey, Cat Power and others.

Over the past few years, I’ve written quite a bit about the acclaimed British singer/songwriter, and as you may recall, Shaddad’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Future is slated for an October 26, 2018 release through Beatnik Creative. Earlier this year, I wrote about Future‘s second single “My Body,” a moody track featuring shoegazer-like atmospherics and a dark, seductive, trip hop-inspired groove that evoked a plaintive and uncertain need. “This Is My Cue” the album’s third single continued in a similar vein as its predecessor — moody atmospherics but centered around a candid and ironically rousing breakup song.

Future‘s fourth and latest single “Just Goes to Show” continues a run of atmospheric tracks with a deceptively anthemic nature but much like its immediate predecessor, the track is deeply confessional and unabashedly honest description of the desperate, uneasy feelings of a breakup –but from the perspective of the person being left behind to deal with the aftermath. And while some have compared the song to The Cranberries,Wolf Alice and Marika Hackman, the song isn’t completely dire as it (subtly) suggests that life and one’s heart does go on after a while.

Directed by Patrick Taylor, the recently released video was shot in one of Shaddad’s favorite venues in London, specifically decorated to fit, along with some willing friends and family as extras “(My little (big) bro is in it, and my cousins, in fact it’s a repeat performance from one:) The costume and hair and make up teams worked total miracles on all of us and then we channeled our inner teenagers and the result is something completely and bananasly different for me.” Of course, the video features Shaddad at a painfully awkward and terrible 90s-like prom, complete with its attendees doing sad two-steps, while the video’s protagonist sit off to the side singing the song before being asked to dance — while capturing the innermost thoughts, desires and frustrations of teenagers. Interestingly, as Shaddad says, the “song has always felt like the kind of thing that would be playing in one of those terrible but incredible 90s movies prom scenes and so I was dying to make a video played on that.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of her first two EPs Run and Waters, the London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Eliza Shaddad quickly rose to international prominence, receiving praise from a number of major media outlets including The Fader, Nylon, Stereogum, The Line of Best Fit, The Independent, Clash, The 405, as well as airplay from BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1Xtra, Beats 1 Radio and countless others for a sound that some have compared to the likes of PJ Harvey, Cat Power and others.

Over the past few years, I’ve written quite a bit about the acclaimed British singer/songwriter, and as you may recall, Shaddad’s highly-anticipated full-length debut Future is slated for an October 26, 2018 release through Beatnik Creative. Earlier this year, I wrote about Future‘s second single “My Body,” a moody track featuring shoegazer-like atmospherics and a dark, seductive, trip hop-inspired groove that evoked a plaintive and uncertain need. “This Is My Cue” the album’s third single continued in a similar vein as its predecessor — moody atmospherics but centered around a candid and ironically rousing breakup song.

Future‘s fourth and latest single “Just Goes to Show” continues a run of atmospheric tracks with a deceptively anthemic nature but much like its immediate predecessor, the track is deeply confessional and unabashedly honest description of the desperate, uneasy feelings of a breakup –but from the perspective of the person being left behind to deal with the aftermath. And while some have compared the song to The Cranberries, Wolf Alice and Marika Hackman, the song isn’t completely dire as it (subtly) suggests that life and one’s heart does go on after a while.