Los Angeles-born pop singer-songwriter Lexi Jayde has officially released her long-awaited debut album, LOVER GIRL, today via Columbia Records. The album builds a universe where feeling everything deeply, through both the highs and lows, is a deliberate way of moving through the world and there’s no such thing as caring too much. LOVER GIRL was executive-produced by Nick Ruth and co-written entirely by Lexi alongside collaborators Grace Enger, Lucy Healey, Victoria Zaro, and Leroy Clampitt.
With all the unfiltered candor of a soul-baring confession and the larger-than-life drama of an iconic rom-com, the album marks a beautiful evolution of the intimately detailed storytelling Lexi became known for and spotlights her gorgeously cinematic brand of pop. A diary of the last four years of her life, LOVER GIRL finds Lexi wearing her heart on her sleeve as she navigates love, heartbreak, self-doubt, body image, growing pains, and the often-delusional decisions that come with figuring yourself out in your 20s.
Arriving alongside the album is the Katherine Gogue-directed official video for “misunderstood,” the painfully soft and then loudly cathartic focus track about the gut-wrenching betrayal of being told everything you want to hear, only to be left wondering if they ever meant any of it.
Across LOVER GIRL, Lexi moves through the space between fantasy and reality, capturing the dizzying highs of falling hard alongside the painful clarity that comes when the fantasy starts to fade. On “you’re still mine,” she leans into the intentional self-delusion of knowing a relationship is over while refusing to believe it, turning obsessive thoughts into an irresistibly fun, guitar-driven rush. “i’ve missed you longer” captures the quieter ache of mourning a relationship that barely existed, while “such a bitch!” flips heartbreak on its head with a tongue-in-cheek declaration of self-worth. On “bubblebath,” Lexi sinks to one of the album’s most vulnerable places, confronting the feeling of having everything around her fall apart and what it means to lose touch with the best parts of herself that she loves most.
Since breaking out with “drunk text me,” which has amassed nearly 300 million streams, Lexi has grown up alongside the audience that first found her through her honest and candid songwriting. She may have spent the last four years writing this diary, but by sharing it, she’s making room for listeners to find pieces of their own stories in its pages, and ultimately feel a little less alone in theirs.
“I don’t think we’re here to protect our hearts. I think we’re here to use them. Feeling deeply isn’t my weakness. It’s my greatest gift. Because what a privilege it is to care this much. To have your heart broken and somehow never let it harden you. To dance in your bedroom with your best friends until you forget what was hurting. To feel completely lost, and trust that you’ll find your way back. The last four years I lost myself trying to be enough for my music, for all the boys I loved, even for myself. But somewhere along the way, I realized I just needed to stop abandoning myself. These songs are every heartbreak, every hope, every version of me along the way. Life gave me every reason to become cynical. But I’d rather keep loving, keep hoping, and keep believing there’s still beauty waiting on the other side. And not because it doesn’t hurt, because it does, but because I never want to lose the part of me that believes it’s worth it. And I think that’s what it means to be a lover girl. And I hope I never stop being one.”
LOVER GIRL is out everywhere now, with vinyl and CDs also available on lexi-jayde.com.