Ahead of the release of ‘Build A Problem’ in March 2021, dodie has released her first single, ‘Cool Girl’, as a teaser of what is to come in her debut album.
Dorothy Clark, the YouTube musical sensation better known as Dodie or dodie (as she has conventionalised it with the lower-case d and goes by as a singer), has been releasing original songs on YouTube since the age of 16 back in 2009.
I can remember the first time I heard a dodie original as if it were yesterday. It was called ‘Braces to Lipstick’ and was a YouTube original song dedicated to her best friend as a birthday present. In fact, it wasn’t yesterday at all, it was 6 years ago in my Sixth Form common room when one of my best-friends showed me a singer they “thought I’d like”. 6 years later and I’ve seen dodie live 4 times, cried at every album release, and shared many great hugs and laughs after shows at her stage door too. In fact, as I’m writing this, a giant poster of dodie’s last EP ‘Human’ stares down at my monitor making sure that this review is still as critical as any other, but also includes just the right amount of admiration and fangirl-style idolisation too.
After 3 EPs (‘Intertwined’ in 2016, ‘You’ in 2017, and ‘Human’ in 2019), the time has finally come for dodie to release her debut album ‘Build A Problem’ – which we can anticipate to land on March 5th 2021.
Dodie built up to the announcement of her long-awaited album over the course of three weeks on her second YouTube channel, ‘doddlevloggle’, by knitting a different letter per video – leaving fans in anticipation of what the cosy anagram could possibly be spelling out.
The first track of the new album to be released, ‘Cool Girl’, made its debut on BBC Radio 1 on Radio 1’s Future Sounds with Annie Mac as Annie Mac’s Hottest Record in the World on October 19th 2020 and was simultaneously released on all mainstream streaming services and music providers.
Though this was its first official release, the track had featured throughout dodie’s ‘ALOSIA’ (a lot of songs in April) series on the doddlevloggle channel, where, you guessed it, many new songs and short musical snippets were reimagined or written over the early days of the UK lockdown back in April. Tracks from ‘ALOSIA’ are also featured on the deluxe versions of the ‘Build A Problem’ album.
This single is beautiful and features not only dodie’s authentic and iconic style (of course), but also follows her always relatable themes of feeling every emotion in even the most insipid and everyday experiences. Throughout the single, dodie throws what some may interpret as quite dramatic reactions to an encounter with a person that she had romantic feelings for. However, as most of us would know, there are a million and one emotions interlaced into these everyday encounters and no matter how small or nonchalant, there is no shame in feeling them this deeply and experiencing the emotions that have been brought to the surface.
This is something that I have always loved about dodie and what I think keeps me so entranced by her as an artist. I feel like we grew up in parallel. Whatever I was feeling one week, an original song about something incredibly similar would be uploaded around the same time – which is incredibly comforting as a young person internalising all of your thoughts that you have now come to learn that you are not alone with.
‘Cool Girl’ also touches on emotions similar to those that I seemed to feel back then, by exploring the pressures that are put on us as young women – especially the weight of societal expectations when it comes to impressing men. Though dodie is as delicate and haunting with her beautiful head-voice as ever, you cannot help but hear the power behind her words when she denounces the idea of changing who she is to fit in with the popular trends and attitudes.
Amongst the hype of ‘Build A Problem’, a UK tour has also been announced which is planned to take place in September 20201 – COVID-19 permitting.
Caitlin Parr
Featured image courtesy of Anthony Delanoix via Unsplash. This image has in no way been altered. Image license available here.
Caitlin Parr
Caitlin is an MA student at Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Culture alongside distance learning with the NCTJ. Outside of Empoword, she works in local news and radio in Cardiff, whilst also working with/writing for organisations such as Cardiff Women's Aid, Girlguiding and Change Grow Live. In her spare time she's a musician!