Kicking things off with an exclusive interview, GRACEY spoke about her career, which began with her writing songs for other artists. She said, “I basically wanted to wait until I knew what I wanted to say, and the exact music I wanted to put out. It took until last year putting out my first single until I knew I was ready – it happened organically.”

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Friends! Tune in at 10pm tonight to listen to my live session and chat with the wonderful @jackxsaunders for @bbcradio1 Future Artists! Which songs do you think I’ll be playing?

A post shared by GRACEY (@gracey) on Nov 10, 2020 at 7:40am PST

Her first acoustic track of the evening was ‘Like That’, a stripped back version of the single including acoustic guitar and percussion to liven up the set. Originally released in August, the song features fellow artist Alexander23. GRACEY followed this up with her latest release ‘Don’t’, released in October as an electro-pop song which was compared by Saunders to the music of Charli XCX. The songwriter herself said that she loves up-tempo sad songs, and that “it is lyrically sad but it is, to me, very empowering and very strong. It’s everything I should have said.”

To bring the session to a close, she mentioned a few of her favourite artists and influences, which included Imogen Heap and Francis and the Lights. Coming this Friday 13th November is GRACEY’s mini album ‘The Art of Closure’, which will be her longest release to date. Sharing her first single just last year, GRACEY made her breakthrough in 2020 with the single ‘Don’t Need Love’ in collaboration with 220 Kid as it reached number 9 on the UK Singles Chart. Prior to this she had written songs for artists such as Sub Focus, Lorde, and Kylie Minogue, and now she has built her own fanbase and career as an artist.

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SO… to celebrate the release of my mini album ‘The Art of Closure’ this Friday, I’m giving away 5 signed copies of the CD & cassette! To be in with a chance, enter your details on the link in my bio – the winners announced next Friday! Also make sure you subscribe to ‘Gracey’s World’ (my weekly mailer blog) as there are going to be some exclusives coming your way very soon LOVE YOU 

A post shared by GRACEY (@gracey) on Nov 11, 2020 at 2:19am PST

With lyrics as thoughtful as “Gotta have the time of our lives/All the fucking time, yeah/Don’t we?”, the pair have created an incredibly relatable song which describes the way people on social media are shown to be living a seemingly perfectly life, while that is usually not the case. ‘Empty Love’ is clearly resonating amongst fans as it has gained 300,000 streams on Spotify, along with 100,000 views on the music video.

GRACEY’s homemade music video is out on YouTube now, and was created in three days by the artist along with her collaborator, Ruel, with help from Facebook and Instagram. In the video, the pair are in their bedrooms alone, posing for their cameras and wasting time online.

Written by GRACEY and songwriter-producer Sam De Jong, ‘Empty Love’ is a synth-based pop track with layered vocals and simple yet effective production. The collaboration was teased on Instagram and Twitter with short snippets of lyrics such as “Do you ever get tired of pretending to be yourself?” which gained thousands of likes from followers.

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Do you ever get tired of pretending to be yourself? #EmptyLoveOUTFRIDAY

A post shared by GRACEY (@gracey) on May 20, 2020 at 2:25pm PDT

This comes as the third single from GRACEY in 2020, after ‘Alone In My Room (Gone)’ and ‘Don’t Need Love‘ with 220 KID. The latter has reached 12 million streams since its release in February and recently made it to number 20 in the Official UK Charts. For Ruel, this is the second release of the year, following the collaborative ‘Down For You’ with Cosmo’s Midnight. Both singers joined on Instagram Live to announce the release last week on 20th May, exclaiming “I’m so excited, honestly, this is so mad”. The pair discussed how ‘Empty Love’ came to be, their experience working together, and more. GRACEY opened up to her followers, saying “I wrote it after having my voice operated on and I was silent for three months which you can’t really imagine – that sucked. But, I felt like during that time I was on my phone, like, non-stop being a big mess and I was just relying on everyone else’s opinions.”

 

 

 

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  SO EXCITED FOR FRIDAY (let’s all ignore my awful Technology skills trying to work insta live) @oneruel   A post shared by GRACEY (@gracey) on May 19, 2020 at 4:13am PDT

At age 21, GRACEY has already been working in the music industry for 5 years. When she was 16, she was brought into songwriting and production team Xenomania and spent a few years writing for other artists. Now, GRACEY feels that her emotional and personal songs should be performed herself, not given away. Her first single, ‘Different Things’ was put out in March 2019, and her phenomenal songwriting has captivated fans.

Ruel was discovered by Grammy Award-winning producer M-Phazes in 2015, and released his debut single ‘Golden Years’ in 2017. He has since supported Khalid and Shawn Mendes on tour and put out numerous singles and EPs, which have gained millions of streams.