IT’S an album that has been six years in the making, but after JESS GLYNNE played me her third, self-titled record, I can confirm it’s been well worth the wait.
“I fell out of love with music at one point,” Jess tells me, as we catch up ahead of its release, a week on Friday.
“I got so consumed by my own music and my own career and the world. It was fed to me in a way that I just couldn’t enjoy it any more.”
With seven No1 singles under her belt, landing the record for the most chart-toppers by a British woman in the UK, and her past two albums going straight to the top spot, it’s easy to see why Jess felt under pressure.
Luckily for her fans, though, she fell back in love with her craft, and tells me: “It was listening to Joni Mitchell that reinvigorated me.
“She got me back into story telling and I listened to all the records that inspired me from day one, like Lauryn Hill, Amy Winehouse and Aretha Franklin. It reminded me why I love it.”
READ MORE IN SHOWBIZ
While the downsides of fame might have been hard at times, Jess handles it all with laughter.
Recalling when she was first papped, while walking her dog in 2018, she says with a laugh: “I look blue because I was so see-through white.
“I was running after my dog and the pictures were so bad I just laugh. It was, ‘Jess Glynne goes for a brisk stroll with dog’.
“Why does anyone want to see that?”
Most read in Bizarre
Firmly in spotlight
While she prefers the quieter life, Jess knows the power of her music puts her firmly in the spotlight.
Her huge 2015 No1, Hold My Hand, the theme tune for Jet2holidays ads, recently went viral thanks to stars such as Kim Kardashian and daugh- ter North lip-syncing to it on TikTok.
Jess says with a laugh: “I’m like, ‘Kim, send me some Skims’.
“It blows my mind how that song has regenerated. Before, people heard Hold My Hand and thought, ‘Woohoo, I’m going on holiday,’ but now it’s going viral.
“I picked up my phone a few weeks ago and Jimmy Fallon was doing a routine with his team. And Kim and North did it. What is going on?
“It is such an amazing thing, though. Great songs stand the test of time. You don’t write a song to last three minutes, you write a song to last for 300 years.”
The new songs on Jess’s third record are testament to this, with stand-out tracks including Lying, Promise Me and, my favourite, Chair.
Jess, who started writing the album in 2019 with the help of a team, says: “Chair is about loss in love and friendship. It’s a really personal song.
“That day in the studio, I could barely speak without crying. I hadn’t worked with those two guys before.
“I turned up at the LA studio and was like, ‘Pull your s**t together, Jess’. I went in and said, ‘Hi guys,’ but then the music started and I was like, ‘Oh no,’ and they asked, ‘Are you alright?’ “I just couldn’t hold it in.”
Losing one of her closest friends, coupled with a bad break-up and splitting from her record label Atlantic in 2022, made the writing process tough for Jess.
Now in a relationship with TV presenter and former England footballer Alex Scott, Jess adds: “I was going through a break-up, I’d lost my friend and I was on my own in LA — it was all going on at once.
“When I selected the songs for the album, I could picture the emotions I was going through on each one. “This is why the album is so personal. Writing it was like therapy.”
Other tracks on the LP, simply titled Jess, include Enough and Friend Of Mine. They are catchy, upbeat and reflect turning points in Jess’s life.
Another, Love Me, which has the same title as a track on her debut 2015 album, I Cry When I Laugh, explores Jess’s sexual awakening.
She adds: “I wrote the new Love Me and it’s strange because when I went to start doing it I realised it was the same title of a song I already had.
“But when you listen to the lyrics of the current one and the old one, they are both very feminine sexually.
Writing it was like therapy
“It’s me embracing the sexual woman side of me. It’s weird how they connect like that. Both songs have confidence but it wasn’t on purpose.
“The old Love Me is me growing into myself and telling myself it’s going to be OK. Then in this Love Me, I am sure of myself — let’s do this and get under the covers.”
Her song Easy, which is one of the best on the album, was a late addition. “I wrote Easy at the end of last year. It was really last minute,” she explains.
“I didn’t think anything was missing from the album, until I wrote Easy with Steve Mac and Jack Patterson from Clean Bandit.
“I feel like this is the record the world might need right now.” Like with most of us, age has mellowed Jess and changed her outlook on life. Now managed by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, she adds: “At the start of my career I was stubborn.
“I hesitated if anyone gave me their opinion. We hear it as an attack or as ‘You’re st’.
“As you grow up, you realise it’s not because you’re s**t — you just need some help. Now, for me, it’s vital to collaborate and ask for help.”
As she looks forward to a string of intimate gigs, kicking off in HMV on London’s Oxford Street on April 26, the day her record comes out, Jess is ready to get back out on the road.
She says: “Early on, I was a nervous performer, I’d look every which way but not at the crowd.
“It was at 2015’s V Festival that something clicked. It was as my first album came out, and I will never forget the emotion on stage. That show set off a new era for me in terms of performance, confidence and enjoyment.
“I’m about to put together a new production for the new album and the last two records. It’s going to be amazing.”
I’m doing what I love to do the most, and that is to sing
Jess is planning a return to Glastonbury in two years to mark a decade since her previous show at the festival.
“You’ll see me on the Pyramid Stage in 2026,” Jess says with a smile.
“I’m doing what I love to do the most, and that is to sing.”
JESS ON…
HER FANS: “I WAS watching Beyonce at The O2 before I was in music and I remember her going down to the front because she had recognised some fans. She knew their names and everything.
“I thought, ‘How the hell does she remember them?’ Now it’s so crazy that you do.
“They blow up your phone, they are always the first in the queue, the first at the front . . . You don’t forget those fans.”
SLOWING DOWN: “THE Brits was a great night but it was strange.
“The last two times I’d been there I had performed and it was a different experience, you want to go out celebrating.
“I like having fun, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not the same as five or ten years ago. I don’t want to go ham every time. That would have been an excuse for a big night before but I can’t do it any more.”
RITA ORA: “I WAS driving with Rita when we were in LA at the same time and we were both going through so much.
“I remember sitting with her and we were in the car playing each other records.
“I said, ‘I’ve got this song, I’ll play it’, and she was like, ‘Me too’, and she was like, ‘I want that’, and I was like, ‘That’s done’, so it was quite funny.”
SOCIAL MEDIA: “I HOPE kids today take the time to actually listen to music, not in a TikTok clip, but a whole song.
“Listen to a whole album from start to finish and recognise how it makes you feel, whether it’s happy, sad, makes you want to dance, you might even hate it.
“Whatever it is, music is so important and the culture, all that comes with it. Releasing this album has made me realise how important this is.”
You goth it, Anya
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY looked classy in black at Dior’s pre-fall fashion show in New York.
The Queen’s Gambit actress brought some no-frills glamour to the event in this simple gown and elegant, long gloves.
Anya, who completed her chic look with some heavy eye make-up, recently had a surprise role in Dune: Part Two.
She will be back on screen next month as the title character in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, alongside Chris Hemsworth.
Looks like she’s gone black to basics.
REMIND me not to get on Courtney Love’s bad side.
She has laid into two of the world’s biggest stars, Beyonce and Taylor Swift, so I’d stand no chance.
Courtney said: “Taylor is not important.
“She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she is not interesting as an artist.”
On Beyonce’s No1 album Cowboy Carter, she added: “I like the idea of Beyonce doing a country record because it’s about black women going where previously only white women have been allowed, not that I like it much.
“As a concept, I love it. I just don’t like her music.” Ouch.
SCOTT USHERS RADIO RIVAL TO WEDDING
BBC Radio and Global are staunch rivals, but they will play happy families for the day when Scott Mills ties the knot in the summer.
The Radio 2 DJ has asked Chris Stark, who co-hosts the Capital Breakfast Show, to be one of his groomsmen when he marries producer Sam Vaughan.
The pair spent years side by side on Radio 1 and will reunite at the nuptials. A source said: “Scott and Chris are the best of friends, even though they no longer work together.
“They spent more than a decade together on Radio 1 and were already pals before that, so they have a lot of shared history.
“No matter what stations they are at, and whether there is competition between them, they will still be mates first and foremost, so it will be really special for Scott to have Chris there with him.”
Scott is planning to get married in Spain after almost seven years with his partner Sam following his proposal back in 2021.
One thing’s for sure, they’ll have no shortage of DJs for the wedding reception.
IF you missed out on tickets to Glastonbury when they went on sale last autumn, you’re in luck.
Vodafone has launched a competition for fans to win 100 pairs of tickets to the sold-out event, which will be headlined by Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA.
The mobile provider, the festival’s official connectivity partner, is running the contest until this Sunday on its MyVodafone app.
Yesterday Lulu was added to the line-up, as I revealed she would be this month, alongside Caity Baser, The Feeling and Shaznay Lewis. I’m counting down the days.
JOHNNY IS A MARR-VEL
CAUGHT LIVE
Johnny Marr @ the Eventim Apollo, West London
A VARIED musical career has seen storied guitarist Johnny Marr play with an enviable roll call of quality artists, and he honoured that in a set that mapped his previous and current artistic adventures.
Embracing his beginnings with The Smiths, he included seven choice cuts in which Panic, This Charming Man and Bigmouth Strikes Again stood out.
His Electronic collaboration with Neil Tennant saw the Pet Shop Boys star join in the career celebration, firstly on a rousing cover of David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel, then their Electronic hit Getting Away With It.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
This mesmerised, sold-out venue’s passionate reaction to each song, especially final tune There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, proved the pleasure and privilege was ours as Johnny thanked his superb band, Neil and “nobody f***ing else” in a jibe seemingly aimed at ex- bandmate Morrissey.
- Paul Davies
