Music Jar – week 52

Here we are, mostly safe at the end of 2022. For the last of my Music Jar project artists, I’ve had the incredible pleasure of listening to Self Esteem.
Now, there has been little option but to have had some skin in the Self Esteem game this year (both mine and theirs). As a rising star, appearing on Scroobius Pip’s podcast as well as Friday Night Live – there was no way I wouldn’t have caught up with some of their antics.

Now, Rebecca Lucy Taylor is Self Esteem but they are also described online as being the band. I’ll likely refer to both in this blog.

I’m really into the spoken word elements, and the positivity on display across both Self Esteem’s albums – Compliments Please and Prioritise Pleasure – is contagious. I think there’s a lot to be said for Taylor’s background, working as part of Slow Club, and identifying the development of her own self esteem through her twenties enough to name her project after it. What’s even more incredible is that these extensive verses on love, loss, acceptance, sex are wrapped up in some of the catchiest choruses I’ve heard in a long time. The production on her work is amazing and as I drove down the A Roads of Essex, there was a fat smile on my face, recognising that I am enough. That’s a strong capacity for music to have. Yes, it can make us connect. Sure, you can relate to it. It’s the sense of companionship you get from Self Esteem that makes me glad she/they were the artist I wrapped this year and this project on.

This year has been incredibly transformative for me. I’ve been grateful for anything to ground me. Having something to listen to, somewhere to turn my attention to, may well have been a life saver.

For each artist I’ve listened to as part of this project in 2022, I’ve added a song to a Spotify playlist. You can listen to those here.