Sara Bareilles Promises Singles This Fall From Upcoming Political Album
Just last week, Sara Bareilles teased a new song snippet from her upcoming album. She’s been in the studio all summer, working on an album that will hopefully come out by the end of this year. But besides the occasional studio update and sneak peek into her studio life, Sara’s been quiet about further details of her highly anticipated next record. Luckily, ET and the LA Times caught up with her to learn more about her upcoming political album. And they learned a LOT!
Love, Fear, & Politics
In June, Sara talked about starting her new album in a post on Instagram. She stated that, “Since the world feels insane I feel like my record might reflect that. But I know it has heart. It might be broken, but it has heart.” In her new interviews, Sara reiterated that this will be a “slightly political record.” She continued:
What I see in my community and peers that frightens me is a loss of hope. That’s something I want to speak to on the record. That it’s important to not lose sight of the hope that people are good, that our country is beautiful, that our values are intact, and that we are just very wounded right now.
Sara added, “I’m definitely baring my soul and speaking to this beautiful feminist movement that’s happening.”
Sara has long been a fan of the United States’ previous president, Barack Obama. She even wrote from his perspective in a song called “Seriously,” writing what she imagined his thoughts may have been in regards to the 2016 presidential election. Now she takes her admiration for Obama even further on her new album: “I’ve got songs about Obama on my record that sound like love songs.”
But politics and fear aren’t the only themes in the new music. Sara has been in a relationship with actor Joe Tippett for over a year now, and gushes that she’s in love. In addition to the Obama love songs, Sara also wrote some regular love songs, too.
Indeed, the album touches on “the spectrum of what it feels like to be alive. It’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s all of it.”
A Rootsy Departure
Lyrical themes are just half the story. How will the music sound? Sara said:
It’s a slight departure for me. I’m actually sort of swimming in territory that will feel very familiar for people, but it’s a very rootsy, organic sounding record.
Sara’s Instagram clips aren’t much to go off of yet, but the music already sounds good from what we’ve heard!
13 Songs In… And New Singles Out This Year
Sara only officially began recording this summer. However, she’s made progress pretty quickly already. She revealed that she’s already recorded 13 of the album’s songs. We’re not sure how many more she has to record, but that’s already enough for a standard album!
When asked about the first single, Sara dropped some more exciting news:
Optimistically, definitely before the end of the year you’re gonna hear maybe even more than one song from the record.
It’s unclear whether the album will be out by the end of 2018. There’s a chance fans may not hear the whole album until 2019. But at the very least, we will get to hear one or more songs this fall. Maybe the first single will be that song she previewed last week? We’re certainly excited to hear it!
Sara teased, “There’s lots to share about it that I’m not quite sharing yet.” For now, all we can do is wait.
Watch the exclusive interview with ET below. Sara starts talking about her new music at about 2:15.
Sara’s last regular album, The Blessed Unrest, came out in July 2013. Though it’s been half a decade already, Sara has certainly kept busy with other projects. Indeed, the last five years since then have been a whirlwind of activity. It started with a musical called Waitress, for which Sara composed all the songs. It debuted in Boston in summer 2015. That November, a selection of those new songs appeared on Sara’s themed album, What’s Insides: Songs From Waitress. That fall Sara also released a book, Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) In Song.
Things didn’t slow down there. In 2016, Waitress went to Broadway; in 2017 – and again earlier this year – Sara took on the lead role of Jenna. She also played Mary Magdalene in NBC’s adaption of Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, composed a song for the SpongeBob Square Pants musical, wrote a song called “Seriously” in light of the 2016 presidential election, and released “If I Dare,” a song she composed for the 2017 film, Battle Of The Sexes. She hosted the Tonys in June, is composing music for a new dramedy series called Little Voice (a reference to her major label debut?), and just received a prestigious award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame. All things considered, Sara Bareilles is a hard woman to keep up with!
It’s great to finally know more about Sara’s upcoming, slightly political album! It will also be exciting to finally get to hear new Sara Bareilles music – hopefully later this year. Catch up on all we know about it so far, and keep checking back here for all the latest Sara Bareilles music news.
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