Following the success of her debut album, You Signed Up for This, and the release of the “Stacye’s Mom”-esque TikTok hit, “Cate’s Brother,” English singer-songwriter Maisie Peters is back at it again with two more singles: “Blonde” and “Good Enough.” Back in July, she signed with Gingerbread Records, which is Ed Sheeran’s newest record label. Peters has also gained notoriety from big names in the industry right now including Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers.
These songs could not be more opposite to each other. “Blonde” is the ultimate stomping-on-men anthem with the right amount of bite to make listeners want to dye their hair platinum. In one of her tweets, Maisie says, “I think Blonde and Good Enough are opposites in all ways, it’s almost like all the ways you lose yourself in good enough are the things that you find again in blonde if that makes sense sort of.” Losing yourself and discovering who you are again is an intense process that takes time.
In a recent TikTok trend, the lyrics “Remember how you screwed up when I was a brunette/I don’t think you knew just what you’ve done,” are synced to pictures of young women showing their transformation from being brunette to being blonde. In the bridge, Peters eloquently sings: “You’ll rue the day you did me wrong/I’ll put your name in all the songs,” which sounds more like something out of a Jane Austen novel than a pop song. Peters had her big break young and started writing songs at age 13. She is an instinctive musician, using words and phrases that the average listener would not be accustomed to, while simultaneously creating relatable content that has her audience begging for more.
Taking heavy inspiration from Taylor Swift, Peters’ second single, “Good Enough,” follows the heart-wrenching journey of being rejected by someone who doesn’t love you the way you love them. When you listen to a Maisie Peters song, it seems as if she is directly talking to you. The problems that she sings about become the listener’s problems as they empathize with Peters. The line “People don’t leave people when they really are in love,” sung with a raspy and melancholic tinge can cause anyone to get goosebumps on their arms. On her various social media platforms, she encourages her fans and other listeners to be vulnerable. Before the final release of “Good Enough,” she teased her song by posting a poem that highlighted her best moments and worst moments. This sparked a trend among her fans where they would post poems about their experiences with the ups and downs of their own lives.
Having this vulnerability allows Peters and her listeners to develop deeper connections. The entire atmosphere of a Maisie Peters show is really empowering. When she came to Chicago last March, I was lucky enough to meet her before the concert began and see her live. With the audience being predominantly women, it was easy to bond over experiences with idiotic men. At one point in the concert, Peters noticed a group of twenty-something boys holding a sign that said: “Can you tell that we have never been hugged?” The women roared in laughter. The men in the room stayed silent. Through the sharing of personal downfalls and personal bests, Maisie allows her fans to participate in mini-therapy sessions and to her world.
