In her new single, which came out Friday 22nd May, pop singer-songwriter GRACEY teams up with fellow artist Ruel to tell a modern story. ‘Empty Love’ is, surprisingly, not a love song, but a comment on social media and the impact it has on users.
With lyrics as thoughtful as “Gotta have the time of our lives/All the fucking time, yeah/Don’t we?”, the pair have created an incredibly relatable song which describes the way people on social media are shown to be living a seemingly perfectly life, while that is usually not the case. ‘Empty Love’ is clearly resonating amongst fans as it has gained 300,000 streams on Spotify, along with 100,000 views on the music video.
GRACEY’s homemade music video is out on YouTube now, and was created in three days by the artist along with her collaborator, Ruel, with help from Facebook and Instagram. In the video, the pair are in their bedrooms alone, posing for their cameras and wasting time online.
Written by GRACEY and songwriter-producer Sam De Jong, ‘Empty Love’ is a synth-based pop track with layered vocals and simple yet effective production. The collaboration was teased on Instagram and Twitter with short snippets of lyrics such as “Do you ever get tired of pretending to be yourself?” which gained thousands of likes from followers.
This comes as the third single from GRACEY in 2020, after ‘Alone In My Room (Gone)’ and ‘Don’t Need Love‘ with 220 KID. The latter has reached 12 million streams since its release in February and recently made it to number 20 in the Official UK Charts. For Ruel, this is the second release of the year, following the collaborative ‘Down For You’ with Cosmo’s Midnight. Both singers joined on Instagram Live to announce the release last week on 20th May, exclaiming “I’m so excited, honestly, this is so mad”. The pair discussed how ‘Empty Love’ came to be, their experience working together, and more. GRACEY opened up to her followers, saying “I wrote it after having my voice operated on and I was silent for three months which you can’t really imagine – that sucked. But, I felt like during that time I was on my phone, like, non-stop being a big mess and I was just relying on everyone else’s opinions.”
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SO EXCITED FOR FRIDAY (let’s all ignore my awful Technology skills trying to work insta live) @oneruel A post shared by GRACEY (@gracey) on
At age 21, GRACEY has already been working in the music industry for 5 years. When she was 16, she was brought into songwriting and production team Xenomania and spent a few years writing for other artists. Now, GRACEY feels that her emotional and personal songs should be performed herself, not given away. Her first single, ‘Different Things’ was put out in March 2019, and her phenomenal songwriting has captivated fans.
Ruel was discovered by Grammy Award-winning producer M-Phazes in 2015, and released his debut single ‘Golden Years’ in 2017. He has since supported Khalid and Shawn Mendes on tour and put out numerous singles and EPs, which have gained millions of streams.
