Emma Blackery: Back On Tour and Our Top Ten
Fans rejoice as Emma Blackery is going back on tour this summer! To celebrate, Moths and Giraffes have put together ten of our favourite songs from across her catalogue with exclusive written commentary from Emma on each track.
Emma Blackery is an artist unafraid of change, making her music full of genre diversity. With Emma’s latest U.K. tour in promotion of her second album ‘Girl In A Box’, she also promises a selection of fan favourites in the setlist. Keeping this in mind, we decided to choose ten of our favourite tracks from Emma’s career so far, beginning with the ‘Distance’ EP, released in 2013, right up to her latest material in 2022. But it wasn’t easy! First, we’re going back to 2017…
‘I wrote Nothing Without You back in 2016 when I’d just discovered a band called Relient K – their album Forget and Not Slow Down had a huge influence on my writing, and I think you can hear some of their sound bleed into this song. It’s about being grateful for a relationship - friendship or otherwise - that has since dissolved. It’s easy to feel the pain of a parting, but being able to look back at the good memories and the lessons you’ve learned from that person shows healing.’
‘Nothing Without You’ was the lead single from Blackery’s 2017 EP ‘Magnetised’, which was produced by Romesh Dodangoda and Iain Mahanty. Emma’s guitarist on the EP, Ryan Burnett (affectionately known to fans as ‘Brian’), would accompany Emma on her U.K. and Ireland tour in the summer of 2017. This included a headline slot at that year’s London YouTube convention, Summer In The City.
‘Magnetised’ EP cover-art. Image Credit: Ian Collins.
The Magnetised EP cover-art, shot by Ian Collins, gained notoriety when it was shown in the Apple iPhone X event. The surprise displaying of the artwork in September 2017 was later reported on by the BBC, Billboard and NME. During this time, Blackery was shooting regular vlogs and shows a behind-the-scenes look at that particular photoshoot. She also put together footage of the music video for Nothing Without You being made earlier that year. Emma discusses the original idea for the video below:
“The one thing I knew I wanted for the music video was for me to recreate the scene from Risky Business. My original idea was for it to be a one-take embarrassing ‘dad dance’ throughout a house - obviously this changed as the idea developed with the creative team who helped me piece it together. I loved the outfits in this one, too.”
“My Terms is loosely based on a true story. I remember spending an entire summer with one of my close friends who had been broken up with in the most heartless way. Their partner flew halfway across the world because they had ‘lots to think about’, or words to that extent, and then broke up with my friend over the phone. They’d been together for years, and it made me sick to think that this person that everyone thought was so sweet and caring could do this to my friend. I think I pretty much took on the anger stage of their grief. The metaphor of a bank robbery worked perfectly with the song - I wanted this sort of Wild West sound to make it seem like a showdown between myself and my friend’s ex, confronting them for what they did, if only in song form.”
And the video echoes this metaphor. Filmed and directed by Lars Wickett, ‘My Terms’ is unique in that Emma Blackery isn’t the main character. Instead, a cast of five plays out Emma’s bank robbery scenario in silent film style, using some of the lyrics as title cards.
My Terms is taken from Blackery’s second album ‘Girl In A Box’, produced by Emma and Tom Gittins with extra instrumentation by Davey Bennett. Emma recently played an acoustic set on April 25th in Birmingham’s Cherry Red’s, which included a performance of My Terms featuring Richard Bloomer-Davies on guitar.
‘I’m making a video telling the story about how this song came about, but ultimately this was one of the very rare times in my career that I have taken on a song originally conceptualised by a producer - I rewrote many lyrics to make it suit my image, but if you actually read them… they really don’t mean anything at all. I’m glad it’s a fan favourite, though. It’s fun to sing live.’
‘Look What You Made Me Do’ was part of Emma Blackery’s ‘Sucks To Be You’ EP, released in 2016 and produced by Jason Perry, the co-author of this track. This EP sees the conclusion of Emma’s pop-punk era, which began with 2013’s ‘Distance’ EP and continued in 2014 with ‘Perfect’.
All three of the EP’s songs, including its title centrepiece were the focus of Emma’s touring schedule that year. This saw Emma playing arenas across the U.K. as the opening act for Busted’s ‘Pigs Can Fly’ tour, as well as mounting a headline tour later that year with extra dates for the former and expanded venues for the latter.
‘I wrote Plot Holes just before I finished my debut album, Villains. The album was beginning to really run away in terms of budget, and I reached a point where I felt as though the album was my make-or-break moment as an artist - if it didn’t succeed, I’d have to rethink everything. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, and I’m still making the music I love for a living, as well as writing for other artists, too. This song really captures the feelings of pressure and doubt that were creeping in at that time. The home demo I wrote for this is very reminiscent of early Lorde – you can hear it over on my Patreon, and I’m proud that the finished studio version didn’t veer too far from my original sound at all.’
The Davey Bennett co-written ‘Plot Holes’ is taken from Emma’s ‘My Arms Are Open’ EP, which we wrote about back in May 2020 and includes the lead single and music video ‘Wolves’. My Arms Are Open features a first in Emma’s releases, with the third track ‘History Of Touches’ being entirely self-produced. Though there was no tour for this EP due to the pandemic, Blackery did debut Plot Holes during a performance at Birmingham’s Social In The City: Winter Edition in December 2019.
‘What I Felt With You is one of my favourites from Villains - my love for Taylor Swift really shines in this one! Revisiting the album for the two-year anniversary was a passion project that my partner helped me realise. Every song has a completely new take, and What I Felt With You is definitely a standout from this project. The song is about realising that a relationship you were in really didn’t have all that many great moments, and that you were often more unhappy than you were fulfilled.’
Released in August 2020 for the anniversary of Emma’s debut album ‘Villains’, this edition of the album strips back the pop production of the record. Produced and performed by Emma and Davey Bennett during lockdown, ‘Villains (Acoustic Anniversary Edition)’ shows greater focus on Emma’s lyrics, especially in this version of ‘What I Felt With You’. Emma recently took a similar approach to the title track of her ‘Perfect’ EP, re-recording the song acoustically with keyboard layers and a softer vocal delivery.
‘When it comes to Don’t Come Home, you’re on one of two sides - you either prefer the studio version, which is fast, heavy and orchestrated - or you prefer the softer, slower piano demo. The original was written in a day, I believe. It’s about realising that you’re the unhealthy partner in a relationship and fearing that you can’t change your behaviours, so you’d rather have them leave and find happiness elsewhere, but they won’t go. The lyrics work better with a slower instrumentation. This demo is going to be available on vinyl for the first time on the re-pressing of the Magnetised EP, and available on streaming for the first time later on down the line.’
The demo version of ‘Don’t Come Home’ was released in early 2016, prior to Emma’s ‘Sucks To Be You’ EP. Emma’s accompanist in this video is Arthur Walwin, producer of her ‘Distance’ and ‘Perfect’ EPs. Arthur would go on to play in Emma’s band during her 2016 performances, as well as being the support for her headline tour. This original arrangement of Don’t Come Home was part of the encore for those shows.
It was later remade in a more upbeat style for Magnetised, and was played in that arrangement on the tour in 2017. Emma recently made the announcement that due to enormous overcharging by resellers, she would be re-releasing the Magnetised EP on vinyl, which was only available originally on her 2017 tour. The second edition due for release in June has already sold out.
‘This song almost didn’t make it on to my latest album, Girl In A Box. It was a song I wrote out of the blue one afternoon as a concept idea after listening to Miley Cyrus. It was shortly after the release of My Arms Are Open EP, before a second album was even discussed. Once I decided to write a new album, I was struggling to reach the amount of tracks that I wanted, having not even considered this song for it. I found the project on my computer and listened to it for the first time in ages, and knew immediately that it felt different to every other song on the album - but seeing as the album itself was multi-genre, I felt there was no better time to try something new. It turned out to be pretty divisive - you either love it or hate it. It really took me by surprise when people listened to the album and gave their live commentary - so many people said it was their favourite. With that in mind, I couldn’t leave it off the tour setlist - it’s going to sound huge.’
‘Strange People’ is a song truly unlike any other in Emma Blackery’s back catalogue. Loaded with programming and synthesis, it’s Emma’s pop leanings taken to another level in a song that is destined for people to dance to. The ten-track ‘Girl In A Box’ also features Blackery’s singles ‘Crying’, ‘Brutus’ and a cover of ‘How Soon Is Now?’, originally by The Smiths. Fans can expect a heavy showing of this record in her upcoming tour!
‘I’ve spoken about this song many times, and what inspired it - I was going through a time where a particular group of influencers were being pretty vindictive online, and I was doing the wrong thing and giving it my attention in return. It all ended up as public bullshit on Twitter, which I regret. We were all adults acting like children. It should have been dealt with privately, and even though I didn’t instigate it, I wish I’d ended it. This song is about those petty arguments, where nobody wins - you just look like a mud-slinging idiot on social media. I’m a little more mature these days, thank goodness.’
Emma Blackery’s 2018 was dedicated to the lead-up and release of her debut album ‘Villains’. Singles for this record include ‘Dirt’, ‘Agenda’ and ‘Take Me Out’, but ‘Third Eye’ is an album track and an enduring fan favourite, the only song on Villains to be co-written by Maxwell Cooke.
During the week around the album’s release in August and September, Emma embarked on a signing tour for the record at HMV stores across the UK. Playing a set of tracks from Villains at HMV’s Oxford store, the energy in the room when Blackery performed Third Eye was off the chart, despite the album only being released the day before.
Emma later took the Villains album on a full-scale tour, playing headline shows in Europe for the very first time. Though originally booked to be a European tour earlier in March 2018, the dates were re-tooled due to recording delays and combined with U.K. shows to promote the new album in October. Emma and her band played fifteen dates in total, and performed the eleven-track Villains in its entirety. Emma’s upcoming tour in June will be her first since this run of shows in 2018.
‘The lyrics make it very clear what this song is about - all I’ll say is that I’m glad I wrote it and that it has helped so many people. People have tattoos of the lyrics on them. A song I wrote in my childhood bedroom, based on the chords on the very first song I ever wrote on guitar when I was twelve - has helped more people than I could have ever anticipated. I’m very grateful.’
A single from the four-track ‘Distance’ EP, ‘The Promise’ has been a comfort to fans since it was released in 2013. It remains one of Emma Blackery’s most popular songs, with more than 3 million streams on Spotify and over 1.6 million views on this music video. It was a staple of Blackery’s live performances until 2017, but was absent from the setlist during the Villains tour.
Emma has been critical of her songwriting on The Promise in recent years and has since made a video explaining her relationship with the song. With the success of the Magnetised re-release, could there be re-issues of Emma’s earlier works, like Distance?
‘My latest single What Have You Done For Me Lately? is possibly my all-time favourite release - not only in terms of the production (done in-house by myself and my partner) but also in terms of genre. There’s no point in denying this sound was inspired by bands such as The White Stripes and Death From Above 1979 - I fell in love with garage rock during my teens (in fact, I’ve heard every song form The White Stripes thousands of times over) and I really feel like my voice suits the sound. Fun fact, this song actually features zero guitar. What you hear is all bass guitar. It’s layers upon layers of heavy, distorted bass with those trashy drums that are such a staple in garage rock. It’s being played on tour, and hearing it in rehearsals blew us away - it’s so heavy! It’s definitely a highlight in the set for me.’
And finally, what better way to finish our list of Emma Blackery favourites than with her latest single ‘What Have You Done For Me Lately?’ The raw, riff-based track is a fitting accompaniment to Emma’s album ‘Girl In A Box’. Listen especially for the panning bass riff during the break.
We did say it wasn’t easy to choose just ten songs! So our honourable mentions include the title track from Emma’s ‘Magnetised’ EP, the 2019 single ‘Cute Without You’ and ‘Blossom’, Emma’s standalone single from 2020 which we wrote and interviewed Emma about here.
Do you agree with our top ten? What are your favourite Emma Blackery songs? Let us know by tweeting us @mothsgiraffes!
Tickets for Emma Blackery’s Girl In A Box U.K. Tour are on sale now with both general admission and VIP upgrades available. The tour includes support from Bronnie, who Emma collaborated with on a cover of Hole’s ‘Celebrity Skin’ in 2022. Expect this and much more, Emma’s first tour in almost four years is close to selling out!
For tickets to see Emma Blackery at the Manchester Club Academy on the 10th of June, visit See Tickets or Ticketline. VIP tickets are still available from the latter.
For tickets to the Birmingham o2 Institute on the 11th of June, visit See Tickets or Ticketmaster.
To see Emma at London’s Islington o2 Academy on the 18th of June, visit See Tickets or Ticketmaster. VIP upgrade tickets are available on Ticketmaster.
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