At simply 21, Grace VanderWaal has lived extra lives than most singer-songwriters twice her age—and on her newest album CHILDSTAR (launched April 4 by way of Pulse Data), she’s now not asking permission to inform her story. She’s taking the mic, reclaiming the narrative, steering it herself and burning the outdated script.
As soon as referred to as the wide-eyed ukulele prodigy who received America’s Acquired Expertise (2016) at simply 12, Grace VanderWaal is now not the woman the world remembers. Her newest album, CHILDSTAR, makes that unmistakably clear. In her place stands an artist unafraid to confront the uncomfortable—prepared to unravel the emotional wreckage of rising up commodified, managed, and hyper-visible. With simply 9 tracks, CHILDSTAR is a hauntingly poetic excavation of identification, autonomy, and the aching complexity of coming of age below a highlight you by no means requested for.
CHILDSTAR opens with “Proud,” a fragile unraveling of the “golden little one” delusion. The observe begins with a wistful, music field lullaby—an eerie prelude to what unfolds. However VanderWaal doesn’t simply sing right here—she aches, whispers, and claws her means via the wreckage of perfection. “Promise I’ll be small / I received’t take up area in any respect… Floor your self. Keep in mind your home. You don’t have a voice but. You don’t get to say,” she croons, peeling again the quiet agony of invisible expectations and internalized efficiency. It’s a track that captures how reward, when laced with strain, can calcify into emotional imprisonment.
“As a child, you have got this timeless want for validation,” Grace displays on her track. “In some instances, you abandon your self, and also you aren’t granted what you want mentally. You’re selecting to be robust, solely as a result of it’s your accountability to be robust.” She factors to the phrase, ‘Trigger you’re so particular’, as a weaponized form of love—one which tips kids into considering they need to earn it by being palatable, mature, and self-sufficient far too quickly. “‘Proud’ tells the story of the golden little one archetype—a baby who suppresses their very own wants with a view to be liked, to be valued, to be sufficient. That was me,” she says. “And that’s why it needed to be the primary observe on my new album CHILDSTAR.”
Subsequent comes “Model New,” the album’s focus observe—a whispered manifesto on self-objectification, want, and the aching blur between efficiency and possession. Constructed on haunting minimalism, the track is gorgeously restrained but emotionally overflowing, with Grace’s voice barely rising above a breath. It’s delicate, devastating, and brave in its complexity. “It’s a love-hate relationship and a commentary on the patriarchy,” she confesses, chatting with the expertise of being sexualized earlier than totally understanding what that even meant.
“Model New” is arguably her most susceptible observe but—and maybe her most unflinching. “It’s vital to speak about all the completely different layers,” Grace says. “You surprise, ‘What if I dream of being a horny lady? What if that’s one thing I would like? Am I nonetheless only a woman on the finish of the day?” These aren’t simply rhetorical musings—they’re a confrontation of the tangled expectations positioned on younger girls navigating visibility. And in that stress, the observe turns into a quiet riot—one which refuses straightforward solutions.
Then comes “Homesick,” a hushed elegy to a childhood that by no means fairly was. Over gently plucked acoustic guitar, Grace’s voice trembles with uncooked longing as she murmurs, “I’m homesick for a day that by no means occurred.” It’s a confession wrapped in melancholy—a craving not for what was, however for what ought to have been.
“You’re romanticizing an unattainable reminiscence,” she explains. “Nostalgia is painful. We at all times look again at a second we thought-about to be the epitome of perfection, however… was it ever actual?” It’s a shocking realization—one which lingers and echoes into the remainder of the album.
On “Behavioral Issues” and “Name It What You Need,” Grace dives headfirst into the chasm between how she’s seen and the way she feels. The push and pull between notion and actuality turns into its personal form of battlefield. Throughout CHILDSTAR, the manufacturing stays hauntingly minimal; strings stretch, melodies ache, and silence turns into its personal language—intentionally sparse, so there’s nowhere for her to cover. However that’s the purpose. She’s not hiding anymore.
Ultimately, CHILDSTAR is greater than a comeback album—it’s a reckoning. Talking in regards to the album, she reveals,
“I felt for a very long time I used to be a strolling shadow of myself. I felt stolen. My identify, my face, my physique. Whereas writing CHILDSTAR, I spotted, I’ve one thing nobody can take away, and that’s my story. This album gifted me one thing I’m eternally grateful for, and that’s my energy. To you studying, thanks endlessly for listening. I hope this album grants you a present because it did to me.”
To deliver CHILDSTAR to life past the music, Grace VanderWaal unveiled CHILDSTAR: Last Act—a choreographed brief movie she co-directed with Luca Renzi and Jacob Boehme. Visceral, interpretive, and emotionally unflinching, the visible piece options 5 performances pulled from the album’s core: “Proud,” “Model New,” “Homesick,” “Fade,” and “Behavioral Issues.”
However this isn’t only a companion video—it’s half efficiency artwork, half soul exorcism. With each motion and body, Grace crafts a reckoning in real-time, shedding the polish and taking part in within the uncooked. It’s the form of visible assertion that makes it clear: she’s not following the principles—she’s rewriting the whole playbook.
Subsequent month, Grace brings CHILDSTAR to life onstage, marking her return to the highway with a six-city North American headline tour—her first since 2019. Kicking off Might 4 in Chicago, the tour weaves via Toronto, Washington D.C., and New York Metropolis earlier than arriving in Los Angeles for a double characteristic and shutting out in San Francisco on Might 21.
However the woman taking the stage isn’t the one audiences keep in mind. It is a new chapter totally—a daring, blazing debut of the artist she’s fought to turn into. CHILDSTAR is a rebirth, a requiem for the woman who as soon as was, and an anthem for the lady who now dares to take up area.
For tickets and tour particulars, go to gracevanderwaal.com/tour.
Hearken to CHILDSTAR right here — obtainable on all digital streaming platforms!
