Singer Laufey is tired of chasing beauty

For Laufey, 2024 was a whirlwind year. 2025 may be even wilder.

- Ben Sisario

NEW YORK - For Laufey, 2024 was a whirlwind year. 2025 may be even wilder.

Last year, the indie singer-songwriter, who cannot be described without a flurry of hyphenated hybrids - Icelandic-Chinese, jazz-pop-classical, TikTok-trad - became a breakout star with a quirky pop style that draws equally from American singer Taylor Swift and the romantic whimsy of mid-century musicals.

She won a Grammy (Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for 2023's Bewitched) and attended the Met Gala in a rose-coloured princess gown and, in perhaps the ultimate orchestra-nerd Easter egg, a veil embroidered with a Bach fugue.

As she prepared to release her third studio album A Matter Of Time, the 26-year-old was still practically glowing over those accomplishments.

But seated at a control console at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, where she recorded three of the album's 14 songs, she also catalogued the jitters and anxieties she felt being thrust into the machinery of fame.

"I wanted 2025 to be this year where I was less anxious," she said, "and instead of walking meekly onto the red carpets or into relationships, I wanted to walk with confidence."

In just a few years, Laufey has become a phenomenon almost without comparison in contemporary pop.