Lola Blanc Delivers Sweet Poison In “Angry Too”

Jul 26, 2019 in Discover, Music by Ayu Martin

This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)

You may know Lola Blanc from such spookily electrifying songs as “The Magic” and the glamorously fierce “Don’t Say You Do.” You may also recognize Lola Blanc from her appearance in American Horror Story: Hotel in 2015 and CBS’ Life in Pieces, read about her on Billboard, Refinery29, or PAPER, or listened to the Britney Spears song that she co-wrote, “Ooh La La.” If you’re new to Lola, then beneath what appears to be the usual—but much deserved—glamor of a rising artist comes a backstory that is a bit harder to gleam. The singer/songwriter, director, model, writer, and former child ventriloquist (!) grew up believing in a Mormon cult leader who abused her and her mother. Lola, in an honest article for Vice, said that she dealt with the harrowing experience through her music. She also has the not-so-rosy experience of a woman in the entertainment industry, something the #MeToo movement has been shedding light on. In her newest single, “Angry Too,” she makes the movement a raging fire.

“Angry Too” is eerily playful, what with orchestration befitting of a carnival scene in a horror movie and Lola’s whimsical, high-pitched voice delivering cutting, unforgiving emotion like it’s sweet poison. As always, she has outdone herself with her music video, which shows Lola singing throughout the rough handling of the male hands around her that force her into wigs, lipstick, and red tape. The lyrics speak to the pressure women face to accept unfair treatment, and how unrealistic passivity to it can be.

“I buried the unseemly urges deep down in the ground with the roots, but it’s all coming up to the surface, maybe it’s getting ready to bloom,” she sings. “’Cause it gets my blood boiling and I’m coming unglued. It would eat you like poison if you knew what I knew—you would be angry too.”

Lola told L’Officiel USA what the song meant for her:

“’Angry Too’ was my way of dealing with all this rage that surfaced when the #MeToo outings were peaking . . . It wasn’t supposed to be a message song, it wasn’t supposed to be about that at all, but all of these feelings had been coming up that I’d just kind of put away for a long time. And I hadn’t ever really known how to express it, because anger is uncomfortable. It was easier to shove it down. But I needed to let myself feel it.”

Whether you yourself need to let yourself feel it, or you want insight into an experience different from your own, Lola’s “Angry Too” is an essential listen. And we can promise you—awareness has never sounded so good!