Mae Muller has had a tumultuous year, from being in the eye of the hurricane representing the UK at Eurovision, to releasing her debut album.
The 26-year-old, who was first spotted after posting a video of herself on Instagram while working in a Kentish Town pub, has poured her feisty personality into Sorry I'm Late.
It's packed with joyful high-energy pop like I Just Came to Dance and Eurovision's I Wrote A Song, catchy ear worms fortified by streetsmart lyrics with lashings of attitude and sardonic humour.
Riffing on love and dating, it oozes both the empowerment and vulnerabilities of young womanhood; Sorry Daniel is an amusing play on 'it's not you it's me', Little Bit Sad finds her wishing the guy she broke up with would be a shade more upset, and new single Me Myself & I is an empowering paean to finding "a keeper" in herself.
It's a testament to her resilience after the rollercoaster of Eurovision, from the high hopes after Sam Ryder's 2022 success, to coming second last.
"It was very intense, everything I imagined times a million," she says.
"There was a lot of joy, but the pressure was off the scale. It was weird because I have been doing this for a long time and love performing, but I felt unsure of myself and my ability, I was trying to get it together, but I couldn't quite find myself in that space."
The former Brookfield Primary pupil, who still lives in Kentish Town, says of the final: "I tend to move on to the next thing quickly, but there was no running away from it. I gave myself a day to wallow and grieve that experience, all the energy I had put in, that feeling of failure, and it did feel like a failure.
"I was slightly traumatised, and then I thought 'this is not a pity party, I wrote an amazing song I travelled round Europe and met loads of people.' I started owning the narrative, in my stupid funny way, I posted a TikTok and felt so much better."
Despite it all, she "thoroughly enjoyed it."
"I got what I wanted out of it, to connect with more people, so a lot more will hear this album - and I got a top 10 song."
It taught her, if she needed it, that she was a "strong arse woman," a lesson she learned years earlier at Acland Burghley where she was bullied because she looked young.
"Looking back it's such a tiny fraction of your life, but going through it feels like forever. It's weird being bullied when you haven't finished developing, but I put too much pressure on myself, feeling 'I don't look the way I am supposed to there's something wrong with me'. What's so scary is I was already worrying about that at 12 years old."
Mae dug deep and rationalised, thinking "this body gets me around, I'm healthy, focus on the positives," and by 15 she had "better friends and felt more comfortable with myself."
"It's made me more sure of myself because you are never going to please everyone. I still struggle with body image now, you're either not thin enough or not big enough, but as long as I am happy with myself, no-one can have an opinion."
She's aware how much social media has changed the landscape around body image.
"I only got Instagram when I was 17 and can't imagine the extra pressure of growing up with social media, and girls getting comfortable with their bodies."
Her track Porn Lied to Us airs the struggle to be intimate amid unrealistic expectations of sex.
"I hadn't heard a lot of songs like that, there are so many about sex but not about the other side, the pressure to perform that comes with being intimate, and eager to please."
Growing up in "creative" Camden, with access to The Roundhouse Jazz Cafe listening to Lily Allen and Florence + The Machine, was a postive experience. "As a teenager we spent so much time on Hampstead Heath doing things we weren't supposed to, smoking cigarettes, drinking cheap vodka, thinking we were rcool."
She looks back on the girl who posted on Instagram and snagged a management deal, and thinks it was partly false bravado.
"I've always found it easier putting my feelings and thoughts into songs, when I started writing music in my late teens I was so opinionated and confident writing these break up bops that ooze with self assurance. But I don't think I had that strength before. Now I feel it's coming from a genuine place, I'm not just owning that confident side but the vulnerablity. Writing those exposing lyrics, I feel brave and that other people can relate to them and not feel so alone."
And she feels it's a good time to be a female pop star.
"You can just do what you want, say how you feel. It's an exciting time at the moment, with girls doing it on our own terms."
Mae Muller Sorry I'm Late is out on September 29.
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