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The industry’s attempts to turn this singer into a sex symbol ended in tears. As she releases her first album in 13 years, she’s taking back control.
– wearing a push-up bra, suspenders and a come-hither look – she burst into tears. The singer-songwriter, who had already turned down an offer to pose for the men’s magazine at 16, had instead dreamt of being interviewed byHailing from the Melbourne suburb of Dandenong, Cilmi was discovered at 10, signed at 13 and had a worldwide hit at 16 with.
The song topped the charts in Australia, the Netherlands and Norway while cracking the top 10 in 11 other countries, including the UK. This was followed by a platinum-certified album,The pressure to repeat this success was immense – and the music industry offered no shortage of advice. Cilmi was discouraged from playing instruments “because that’s not what girls do”. Her parents were told, “Your daughter may be special now, but she won’t be once she’s older.
” Some people ordered her to smile more while others criticised her for smiling too much. At a gig in New York, she was called “chubby”. , would be an electro-dance record. This“I was told, ‘You’re 18 now, you’re a woman, you’re sexy and you’re confident’,” says Cilmi via Zoom from her home in England, where she lives with her partner and musical collaborator,even though I’ve got two left feet, and I’m portraying this kind of sexy robot persona, which didn’t feel like me. Although there are some great songs on that record – and I loved how the drag community embraced it – I was really depressed and lost.
I was trying to please other people around me; I was afraid that if I didn’t go along with it, I wouldn’t have a career any more. ” “It felt like it had been manipulated by other people around me to the point where I didn’t know who I was. ”“I think I was running away from my name,” says the 34-year-old.
“I’d take meetings with people who had preconceived notions of who I am, and they had one box they thought I fit in. ”“I was singing my little heart out, stomping my feet, just giving it my all,” she says. It made a big impression on her partner, too. When the video ended, he turned to Cilmi and encouraged her to channel this passion into her new album.
“Just do it,” he told her. “You have this in you. ”“All of a sudden, I had a vision for this record,” Cilmi says.
“I was feeling lost and that was a moment where I felt like I was found again. As cheesy as it sounds, it was like I’d gotten to the truth of what my purpose was. It had been so tainted – and it felt like it had been manipulated by other people around me to the point where I didn’t know who I was – and this just brought me back to myself.
” As a young girl, Cilmi spoke her parents’ Italian dialects at home while learning standard Italian at school. She was heavily involved in Italian community events, where singing was central to the festivities. It was a happy childhood but when she was eight, her mother’s cancer diagnosis turned her world upside down.
“I was hyper-aware of life and death because my mum went through chemo,” she says. “Thankfully, she’s been in remission for many years but I think that’s where my OCD came from. I believed that if I put all my shoes in a straight line, she would be well. Everything I did was about making sure the people around me didn’t die.
It was magical thinking … I think that’s where a lot of my compulsions stem from. ” While still prone to “overthinking and ruminating”, Cilmi has shed some of the unhelpful beliefs that industry executives inculcated in her. ,” she says.
“A good piece of advice I read was, ‘Work towards being respected, not liked’. That stuck with me. ”is not just Cilmi’s best album; it’s one of the best albums of the year. Making the most of her warm, smoky contralto, it blends rock, soul and pop, drawing inspiration from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Carole King and The Rolling Stones.
“I was really inspired by the music of the ’60s and ’70s,” she says. “I watched videos of Joe Cocker withdoing these raw, ramshackle performances. They were perfectly imperfect, with all their blood, sweat and tears. ”, at Woodstock in 1969, ranks among her favourite live performances.
“That crossroads of the ’60s and ’70s is my favourite era of music, where nothing had gone too disco or kitsch,” she says. ] had chord charts and lyrics, but sometimes they didn’t even hear the demos. With my minimal guitar skills, I’d just play them the songs acoustically and the music was built around that in a really spontaneous way. I wanted to get musicians in a room together and just capture the moment.
“I was used to being told, ‘You need to do that again, it has to be perfect’, but this record is the opposite of that. My friend told me it sounds like howCilmi performs in Melbourne on October 15, Sydney on October 17, Avoca Beach on October 18, Moorabbin on October 22, Lara on October 23 and Werribee on October 24.
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