Hannah Grae (born c. 2002) is a Welsh rock musician from Port Talbot. Several of her works have gone viral online, and she released a mini-album, Hell Is a Teenage Girl, in April 2023. She is a member of Loud LDN.
Hannah Grae | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Member of | Loud LDN |
Life and career
Early life
Grae was born in Port Talbot, and has a brother.[1] Her parents worked as a drama teacher and in the film industry.[2] Growing up, she was a fan of Hannah Montana, having first developed interest through a shared given name, and found her double life as a schoolgirl by day and a popstar by night aspirational; from her, she became a fan of Taylor Swift.[1] She later became a fan of Justin Bieber when she was ten. She was inspired to make her own music after watching an episode of Friends in which Phoebe Buffay wrote a song; her first work was a song called "The Chicken Song", and her first works were acoustic piano-based songs.[2]
She later took over her father's studio; in a September 2023 interview with Rolling Stone, she stated that her father had built it in her garden seven years earlier, that it started off as his office but turned into a Ninjutsu studio, and that they had to soundproof it after her brother's band took over the cabin and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council complained.[3] She later diversified into rock-based cover versions and reworkings,[2] such as a version of Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" from the perspective of her ex-boyfriend's new partner.[3] In 2021, she uploaded an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl" to YouTube and TikTok, which went viral on both platforms, with commenters treating the comments section as a safe space and sharing their own stories of abuse; moved by the response, she began composing original songs.[2]
Hell Is a Teenage Girl and Nothing Lasts Forever
Grae's debut single, released in September 2022, was "Propaganda", a song about the pressures of social media.[4] In November, she released "Time of Your Life", a song about adolescent issues, alongside a video filmed in a Port Talbot comprehensive school.[5] She then released the singles "I Never Say No" and "Hell Is a Teenage Girl",[6] the latter of which took its name from a line in Jennifer's Body (2009),[7] and then in April 2023, she released "Jaded", an attempt at writing about feelings of inferiority in relationships; all five singles appeared on her mini-album Hell Is a Teenage Girl,[6] which she released later that month,[8] and intended as a riposte to her bullies.[9] After she finished writing Hell Is a Teenage Girl, she took a five-month break, during which time she moved to London,[3] doing so in January 2022;[2] she resumed writing as a way of distracting herself from external pressures.[3]
Her next single, "Screw Loose", was released on 25 August 2023, and was written about feelings of confusion in her new surroundings;[2] the following day, she and Nieve Ella performed at Reading Festival.[10] In September 2023, she then released "It Could've Been You", a pop-punk record[11] about heartbreak which had previously been teased on TikTok and gone viral, and which NME likened to Blink-182's "All the Small Things" with lyrics "similar to Paramore’s "Misery Business";[12] a music video was filmed at The George Tavern, and was released in October 2023.[13] For Halloween, she released "Who Dunnit?", an experimental song about not being taken seriously accompanied by a music video,[14] and in December 2023, she appeared on Dork's Hype List.[15] She announced her second mini-album, Nothing Lasts Forever, in February 2024, and released "Better Now You're Gone" at the same time.[16]
Artistry
Hell Is a Teenage Girl was inspired by Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Queen, and Taylor Swift.[2] In an interview with The Line of Best Fit in September 2023, Grae cited the honesty of Alanis Morissette as a "huge influence"; the piece also noted that Grae's music was "littered with female influences, from Swift’s songwriting sentimentalities and melodic prowess to the energy of No Doubt" [sic], and sported "a powerful vocal dexterity that, at its highest reaches, carries echoes of [...] Hayley Williams and [...] Demi Lovato".[1] When writing "It Could've Been You", she referenced Bowling for Soup, Green Day, Paramore, American Hi-Fi, Avril Lavigne, Mean Girls and Shrek,[11] and when writing "Who Dunnit?", she was initially inspired by "Heart of Glass" by Blondie.[14] For some of her songs, she writes as her influences, imagining what Swift or Morissette would write about a particular topic.[1] She is a member of Loud LDN,[17] a collective of London-based women and genderqueer musicians founded in May 2022.[18]