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‘Everything I wanted was offered to me. But I felt nothing’: singer Self Esteem on stardom, self-doubt, and making it in a man’s world

Her dreams came true when she went from indie land to lauded pop star. But Self Esteem – aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor – only ended up feeling ‘miserable, depressed and crazy’. Now she’s back with a new look and her best album yet

It topped end-of-year lists, was named the Guardian’s album of the year, got nominated for a Brit award and the Mercury music prize, put her on high-profile radio playlists, sent her to the West End, where she starred in Cabaret, and secured her appearances on TV shows that she’d always dreamed of doing. Its choreographed live performances nodded to Blond Ambition-era Madonna, while its diary-esque spoken-word lead single I Do This All the Time combined aphorisms about life as a British millennial woman with things that men have said to and about Taylor. Photograph: Joseph Okpako/Redferns/Getty ImagesThough Slow Club were never “indie sleaze”, the term given to the era by younger people rediscovering neon vests and flicky eyeliner on TikTok, they were around towards the end of that time, and roughly adjacent to bands such as the Libertines, Klaxons and the Wombats.

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