FULL STEEM AHEAD...

Success story had a bad start

- Naomi Clarke

IN the wake of her hit new album, A Complicated Woman, Self Esteem admits she has taken the long route to critical success, and that “no-one was really that interested” in her early work.

But now the 38-year-old is recognised as one of the most exciting artists in pop following the release of her second album Prioritise Pleasure in 2021, which topped numerous album of the year lists before being nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2022.

Rebecca Lucy Taylor, whose first release as stage-name Self Esteem was 2019's Compliments Please, said she was “very stressed out” with the thought of following up the critically acclaimed record with A Complicated Woman, released in April.

She explains: “My whole career no-one was really that interested in what I was doing, and then suddenly Prioritise Pleasure got these glowing reviews and it was just nothing but positive press.

“And it felt like, what's the catch? And the catch was, artistically, it's very hard to come back from that.