Surrounded by shadows, we reach for light within. Skylar Grey finds strength inside of herself. The five-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated multi platinum artist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist alchemizes darkness into sonic gemstones forged under the heat and pressure of her often-unbelievable experiences. She has endured tumult, trials, and tribulations only to take control of her artistry like never before, writing, producing, and performing nearly every note—alone.
As such, she steps into her power on her third full-length offering and first independent album, Skylar Grey.
“This album takes a transformative journey,” she observes. “There are a lot of sad songs. There are a lot of moments where I’m trying to find my purpose. However, I come out of it super confident like I’m fucking unstoppable. I’ve metamorphosed inside of the storm and emerged stronger on the other side.”
The songstress has quietly cast a long shadow over popular music and culture. Her 2013 full-length debut, Don’t Look Down, bowed in the Top 10 of the Billboard Top 200. In 2016, the follow-up Natural Causes generated tens of millions of streams. Simultaneously, she performed on television shows such as Saturday Night Live, TODAY, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Sought-after by top collaborators, she lent her voice to Dr. Dre’s double-platinum “I Need A Doctor” [feat. Eminem & Skylar Grey], Diddy-Dirty Money’s double-platinum “Coming Home” [feat. Skylar Grey], and Macklemore’s platinum “Glorious” [feat. Skylar Grey], to name a few. Not to mention, her songwriting catalog spans the GRAMMY® Award-nominated diamond-selling “Love The Way You Life” for Eminem and Rihanna, the triple-platinum “Clarity” for Zedd, the platinum “Gangsta” for Kehlani, and more. Plus, she has contributed music to big screen franchises such as Fifty Shades of Grey, Aquaman, and The Fast and The Furious, among others.
To date, she has sold over 30 million units worldwide and earned the adoration of artists such as Billie Eilish. She also notably produced and featured on “Leaving Heaven” from Eminem’s 2020 #1 blockbuster Music To Be Murdered By. In 2021, she unleashed “Last One Standing” [feat. Polo G, Mozzy, & Eminem], which served as the lead single from Venom: Let There Be Carnage and cracked the Billboard Hot 100.
Along the way, Skylar weathered a half-decade period of personal and professional turbulence. In 2021 she finalized a tumultuous 4 year legal battle to divorce her ex-husband and former manager, and had to sell her publishing catalog in order to settle the legal bills. She wound up choosing independence all-around. She may have moved on without a label or management, but her unshakable and unbreakable vision was more than enough to build this totem to emotion.
“Being independent, I took it back to where I fell in love with music as a kid,” she admits. “I was listening to Dido, The Cranberries, Fiona Apple, and Massive Attack. I’ve always been a fan of moody songs; I’ve never personally been a huge fan of upbeat pop, and while I love certain hip-hop, I’m not a rapper. My career has taken all of these different turns, but I’ve decided it’s time to be super brutal about only making music that is authentic to me, and music I would actually personally enjoy listening to. It’s the beginning of a new era for me in this industry. I’ve been turning down sessions to work on my own music like a hermit. For the first time, I made an album that is all me and doesn’t have anybody else’s influence on it.”
It truly doesn’t...
Skylar personally produced the entire record in her bedroom studio, singing, playing piano, and arranging strings and beats. She initially paved a path for the album with “Partly Cloudy With A Chance Of Tears” and “Vampire At The Swimming Pool.” The single and opener “Runaway” sets the tone with its strangely swooning orchestration and vitally vulnerable vocals, “Can I please just runaway and go to where nobody knows my face and start the whole thing over?”
“I was thinking of saying, ‘Fuck it’,” she admits. “I literally wanted to run away and start again with a new persona. When I wrote ‘Love The Way You Lie,’ I had lost my first record deal, my boyfriend dumped me, and I moved to a cabin in Oregon. I went from being broke to writing the biggest song in the world in a matter of months. I learned a lesson. Don’t fall back on old patterns and struggles. Everyone said I was crazy to leave LA, but it was the best decision of my life. I found inspiration, and I found myself again.”
On “Falling Apart,” her vocals glide over delicate piano as she opens up about “being discouraged by all of the hits you take in life.” Then, there’s “Impaled.” The dreamy melody belies an intense realization.
“This one’s about taking some responsibility for your own heartbreak. We control our own emotions, but we give that power away carelessly, especially when we fall in love. And unfortunately a lot of us fall in love with assholes, even though we knew they were assholes from day one. That’s on us.”
Piano cuts through a glitchy haze on the finale “Show Me Where It Hurts.” The vocals flutter above a trip hop-inspired soundscape.
“It’s a letter to my fans,” she smiles. “Let this music help you get through whatever you’re going through.”
In many ways, “Destroyer” represents her apotheosis with an incendiary and infectious declaration of intent.
“The song, ‘Destroyer,’ is a taste of what’s to come in the next phase of my evolution. I’m singing with this newfound confidence after everything I’ve gone through,” she exclaims, “The sadness I’ve lived with for the last five years has changed me, and I’m coming back with a vengeance.”
In the end, she has become who she was always meant to be as an artist on this album—and that’s Skylar Grey.
“This is a year of rebirth,” she leaves off. “This album reflects the transformation I recently endured. Going forward, I see Skylar Grey as a dark anti-hero, a product of her pain... and this album is the prequel.”
