Q&A: Madilyn Bailey is Honest About Anxiety on Upcoming Album ‘Hollywood Dead'
A STUNNING VOICE, FIERCE COMMITMENT TO SONGWRITING AND PERFORMING — as well as a catchy new song to match, Madilyn Bailey is ready to step back into the spotlight.
As a young girl from Wisconsin, Bailey began her career by picking up a guitar and camera and singing her heart out on YouTube doing covers (in 2015, she reached 2 million subscribers on YouTube with her cover of David Guetta and Sia’s “Titanium”), collabing with other YouTubers, and occasionally releasing original songs.
She has also built a following by turning her “hate comments” into songs, one even giving her a standing ovation when she performed it while auditioning for season 16 of America's Got Talent.
But Bailey’s success can be attributed to true hard work, dedication to music and talent, as well as perseverance due to building a career in the age of social media.
Instead of letting hate get her down on online platforms, her favorite thing about these spaces is how she has gotten to know so many people who have grown up with her on YouTube, as well as those who have connected to her original songs and the community and connection they have created.
This following is also a result of Bailey’s music helping people through tough times, particularly with her “Red Ribbon,” which she wrote after the passing of her grandmother, and “Survive,” which explores getting lost in order to know where you’re going. One that fans have recently connected over is “Tattoos and Therapy.”
The track is the first single off Bailey’s first and long-awaited debut studio album, Hollywood Dead.
The super catchy, honest song was inspired by anxiety, self-destruction, and coping mechanisms, as well as a close friend with a ton of tattoos. With a music video that involved several temporary tattoos, which represent every song on the upcoming album, Bailey effectively showcased the song’s aesthetic visually.
Always one to channel her emotions into her writing, Bailey sings about conveying them by texting her ex, calling her mom, or picking a fight. She also sings about her alter ego being a “grim reaper,” which is something we’ve all been through — even if we don’t want to admit to it.
“‘Anxiety,’ that word in general, has gotten a really bad reputation,” Bailey explained on the reason she wrote the song. “But anxious anxiety is just energy that you don't know where to place. And so I feel like if you have proper coping mechanisms, when you recognize you're being triggered, you recognize you're overwhelmed. It's kind of a way that you can take that energy and channel it into something that could be positive.”
And there's even more naturally relatable songs to come on the album. “I think it honestly represents any journey that anybody's going through in their life,” she said. “I feel like everybody is somewhere on their Hollywood Dead journey. You know, whether … you're starting a brand new relationship and you're so excited or you're about to quit this job that you thought you wanted all your life because you decided you want to take your life in a totally different… everybody is [at] a different point on this journey. And I think what's really cool is I think people are gonna listen to this album and there'll be a song on it for everybody. They'll be a song for wherever you are in your journey.”
With a self-aware anxiety anthem for the ages and an album that Bailey describes in three words as “almost, embarrassingly honest,” leave it to this singer-songwriter to take a possible situation or emotion and turn it into something true, something positive, and something honest.
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