In January, pop star Mae Muller wrote a music she thought can be excellent for Eurovision. Just a few days later one among her managers referred to as asking for an pressing assembly over a cup of tea. “I used to be apprehensive my profession was over!” the 25-year-old north Londoner laughs. “Then he stated ‘what do you concentrate on doing Eurovision?’. He had an entire PowerPoint presentation with all of the statistics, and I used to be like ‘hun, I’m all in’. The Eurovision gods should have been talking to me as a result of I already had the music.”
The music in query is Muller’s catchy, Dua Lipa-esque I Wrote a Track, a bolshy meta-hit about channelling anger at an ex into pop poetry. Muller’s intestine instincts had been proper: it does certainly tick quite a lot of Eurovision packing containers. “Firstly it’s a bop, you possibly can dance to it, it’s straightforward to sing alongside to,” lists Muller. “And it doesn’t matter what language you communicate, everybody can sing the ‘da da da da da’ bit,” she provides, referencing the music’s earworm post-chorus.
The Eurovision gods Muller was unwittingly praying to have been shining on the UK extra kindly of late. Final yr, radiantly coiffured TikTok sensation Sam Ryder and his windswept energy ballad Area Man completed second behind Ukraine, whereas cool-adjacent latest Eurovision success tales equivalent to Sweden’s Loreen (the favorite to win once more this yr) and Italian acts equivalent to Mahmood and 2021 winners Måneskin (who not too long ago scored a UK Prime 5 album and headline London’s O2 Area subsequent week), have heralded a wave of Eurovision positivity on these shores. All of it means expectations for Muller’s efficiency are sky excessive. Issues have definitely began properly: I Wrote a Track peaked contained in the UK Prime 40 in March, making it the primary single by a UK Eurovision entrant to take action on launch week since Blue’s I Can in 2011.
“We’re very totally different artists,” Muller says of the pressures of following in Ryder’s footsteps. “What’s comparable is that we each have a constructive message [in our songs], however we now have various things to say and we’ve gone by various things. However him doing so properly final yr might solely ever be a superb factor.” The puppy-like Ryder has been in contact with recommendation: “He despatched me a voice notice encouraging me to try to take every day because it comes and benefit from the second. I don’t wish to look again and want I’d loved it a bit extra.”
Muller – who has been releasing music since 2018, and was obsessive about Eurovision as a toddler, particularly 2007’s Steps-lite duds Scooch – may even have the additional strain of acting on house turf, with subsequent weekend’s Eurovision being held in Liverpool because of the ongoing Russian invasion in Ukraine. “Bodily it’s within the UK however in all of our hearts and minds it’s Ukraine’s yr,” she says. “However I do really feel it additional highlights that regardless of what’s going on on the earth we will come collectively. Eurovision is simply the most important secure area on the planet,” she provides. “Everybody’s so completely satisfied to be there and be themselves. It brings you again to the very fact we’re all simply people on a rock.”
Muller, who chooses her phrases rigorously when speaking about Eurovision, could be very conscious of the escapist competitors’s apolitical status. “Whenever you join you must respect the way it works,” she says. “However at first of the Eurovision journey I used to be nervous; I didn’t know what to say. I’m a 25-year-old lady who sings about heartbreak and boys being annoying. I don’t assume anybody is anticipating any of us to find out about all the pieces that’s happening on the earth, however you must know sufficient.”
That’s to not say Muller hasn’t voiced her political views up to now. In early April the Telegraph dug up a few of her tweets from 2020 wherein she criticised the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson – “Taking on a mattress in intensive care however you’re not on a ventilator and in ‘excessive spirits’? Nah mate,” one learn – and ran a narrative with the headline “British Eurovision entrant is anti-Boris Johnson Left-wing activist”. GB Information, in the meantime, noticed it as a motive to query the BBC’s political impartiality, with Jacob Rees-Mogg claiming it made the broadcaster look “characteristically silly”. Muller is adamant her tweets had been taken out of context, however typically appears unbothered by the furore. “I really feel actually fortunate that I reside in a spot the place as a younger lady I can say how I really feel,” she says.
The highlighting of one other tweet upset her extra, with articles written concerning the reality she had stated she hated the UK whereas discussing the row over free college meals. “The truth that I felt so strongly is as a result of I completely adore the place I’m from,” she says, her often vivid manner momentarily darkening. “I like the individuals, I like its range, I like its inclusivity, but additionally nowhere’s excellent. We’ve got work to do. The UK deserves one of the best and generally once I really feel like that’s not occurring I get obsessed with it.”
Muller’s fearlessness is refreshing and aligns her with outspoken 00s pop stars equivalent to Lily Allen. “I’ve at all times stated I don’t wish to really feel like this unobtainable, far-off thriller,” she says. “I need individuals to really feel like they know me. Like I’m a pal.” It was Allen’s conversational storytelling, and the extra fantastical Florence Welch, who impressed Muller to begin songwriting, with the ensuing songs carried out in entrance of her (typically reticent) household: “I used to be like ‘all people come right here, I’ve written a music and I’m going to carry out it now’,” she laughs. “I at all times cherished to write down.” In actual fact, a part of the explanation she wished to make a music referred to as I Wrote a Track was as a tongue-in-cheek reminder that she’s not simply handed her songs by others: “[At the start of my career] I used to really feel like I needed to show myself.”
It’s an added strain felt by most of Muller’s feminine contemporaries, who all appear to have further hoops to leap by in contrast with their male counterparts. Whereas male pop stars equivalent to Tom Grennan can launch albums with regularity, Raye, L Devine and Gracey have all not too long ago left their main label properties after struggling to get their debut albums launched. Others together with Becky Hill and Ella Henderson have needed to launch a seemingly infinite stream of dance collaborations as a way to be seen and heard. In actual fact, Muller’s largest hit globally is 2021’s Higher Days, a collaboration with Swedish producers Neiked reaching almost 400m streams on Spotify alone.
Muller’s debut album, which she says has been prepared for years, is now scheduled to reach later this yr. “I actually wished to only get the album out, and we had a date, then clearly Eurovision got here alongside and each single date within the calendar bought scrapped. Which is okay, as a result of hopefully extra individuals will get to hearken to it now.” She says her label, EMI, by no means rushed her or stated “you’re by no means releasing an album!” however she admits that her prolonged journey so far “was not how I envisioned it in the beginning of my profession – however that was six years in the past and instances modified,” she shrugs.
So ideas of debut albums have to attend. For now, whereas she’s targeted on taking it day-to-day, she will be able to’t assist however speculate about subsequent weekend’s date with future in Liverpool, the place she’ll be closing the present. “A Prime 5 putting is the dream, however I’ll be pleased with Prime 10,” she says cheerily. “I actually imagine within the music, the staging is wonderful, the choreo is nice, so it’s simply all the way down to me. I can’t mess it up.” She shakes off the self-doubt. “I received’t mess it up. So long as I stroll off that stage pondering ‘that’s one of the best I’ve ever finished it and I had enjoyable’ then I’ll be completely satisfied.”