{"id":46584,"date":"2022-05-02T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=46584"},"modified":"2022-05-02T11:30:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T15:30:28","slug":"chelsea-jade-soft-spot-lp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/chelsea-jade-soft-spot-lp\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea Jade Makes Enigmatic Pop Music for Outsiders with Soft Spot LP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Chelsea-Jade-Soft-Spot-cover-artwork-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46585\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chelseajade.co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Chelsea Jade<\/a> has always felt like an outsider in the music industry. Even after making the voyage to Los Angeles from her isolating home country of New Zealand, Jade\u2019s journey in music has always seemed like something that happened despite her plan, not because of it. She went to art school and dropped out after a year to pursue music. She didn\u2019t quite fit in between the lines of dense art history textbooks, but never really felt at home in the star-studded hustle and bustle of Hollywood. In fact, Jade\u2019s life has been full of paradoxes, and her music makes no exception. Her latest record, <em>Soft Spot<\/em> (out April 29 on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carparkrecords.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Carpark Records<\/a>), is a collection of songs that contain both the effervesce of a summer day and the nihilism of Nietzsche. Her ability to weave dark metaphors and prosaic story telling into the tight confines of ABAB pop song structure is nothing short of genius, and result is, simply put, a record full of bops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFrankly, I appreciate the parameters that pop [music] provides,\u201d says Jade. Once the barriers are in place, you can just bounce around inside so freely.\u201d Take her song \u201cOptimist.\u201d At first glance, it sounds like a lovesick infatuation anthem \u2013 \u201cI became an optimist the minute that we touched\/I\u2019m positive it\u2019s love\/I don\u2019t believe in much\/It\u2019s looking up\/\u2018Cuz I became an optimist the minute that we touched.\u201d But if you listen closely, Jade\u2019s lyrics carry a heavier weight. \u201cIt\u2019s about manipulating someone with sex,\u201d explains Jade, \u201cor using them as a salve when you feel affection for them but you don\u2019t know how to maneuver through that honestly, because you have no self-esteem. Does that make sense?\u201d Why, yes, yes it does. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 400px; height: 439px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3916485143\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/chelseajade.bandcamp.com\/album\/soft-spot\">Soft Spot by CHELSEA JADE<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through this lens, Jade\u2019s record unfolds in a type of dark love story \u2013 the kind that paints your whole world blood red and doesn\u2019t give you a moment to breathe until you\u2019re out the other end. The kind that might actually just be obsession, or lust, or just blatant distraction. In \u201cGood Taste,\u201d Jade elaborates on the idea of sex as a band-aid for any unpleasant emotions. \u201cIt\u2019s like a miracle\/Feeling your charisma getting physical\/And yet I\u2019m miserable\/But oooh, it\u2019s such a mood getting sexual.\u201d But, as nature has proven, the fruit is always the sweetest before it decays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jade points out that the thesis of the record lies in the first phrase of the title track, \u201cSoft Spot\u201d \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m gonna love you from the soft spot where the fruit begins to rot.\u201d It\u2019s a nod to the sickly-sweet decadence that characterizes impulsive love affairs, escapist bouts of romance, or a fling that has run its course. Ironically, the title track is stripped of all the embellishments and lushness present in the rest of the record\u2019s eight tracks, and plays out like an intimate soliloquy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is the art school in me I couldn\u2019t resist,\u201d Jade says of the song\u2019s stripped down production style. \u201cIt felt like a good opportunity not to abandon context. Which is a new thing for me.\u201d She explains that as she adds production to her practice, she\u2019s not afraid to add crunchiness or texture to the music she makes. On top of that, she\u2019s not afraid to let what feels natural supersede what anything \u201cshould\u201d sound like, especially when it comes to pop music. \u201cThe person who\u2019s playing the piano [in &#8220;Soft Spot&#8221;] is not in the music industry or anything, it\u2019s just my friend who has a piano in his house and we were just playing around after dinner, which is nice too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These subversive nods exist throughout the record, whether it\u2019s the dark, repetitious bassline in \u201cOptimist\u201d or the bright twinkling bells set against the foreboding metaphor for relationship-induced isolation in \u201cReal Pearl.\u201d <em>Soft Spot <\/em>finds its home in the spaces between \u2013 between self-awareness and escapism, love and hate, indulgence and sagacity. If Chelsea Jade is an outsider, then we are lucky to get a glimpse inside her enigmatic mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Follow Chelsea Jade on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/iamchelseajade\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Instagram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/iamchelseajade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Facebook<\/a> for ongoing updates.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea Jade has always felt like an outsider in the music industry. Even after making the voyage to Los Angeles from her isolating home country of New Zealand, Jade\u2019s journey in music has always seemed like something that happened despite her plan, not because of it. She went to art school and dropped out after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":46585,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[7342,13082,2115,8159,1160,6772],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Chelsea-Jade-Soft-Spot-cover-artwork-e1651269048484.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46584"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46603,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46584\/revisions\/46603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}