Blondshell isn’t having it. We’re browsing the surprisingly large selection of records tucked into the small space of Rough Trade in Rockefeller Center and talking about the singer-songwriter’s second album, If You Asked for a Picture. It’s quite a blissful scenario for the artist born Sabrina Teitelbaum, except for the fact that a beanie-wearing tourist has just interrupted our conversation to ask if we listen to the Beatles.
“Who?” she retorts, deadpan.
The man keeps talking, blithely sharing a story about the time Dolly Parton supposedly told him she loved him while he sat second-row at her show, before she’s able to get away. “Really? The Beatles are good?” Teitelbaum tells me once we’re out of earshot. “He was like, ‘Look at these two little girls in this vinyl store.’”
In fact, Teitelbaum, 28, seems to have an entire, decades-spanning music library in her head. As we walk through the colorful Midtown Manhattan shop, she casually flexes her knowledge, plucking obscure names and references from Steely Dan deep cuts to rising indie rock band Wishy, and everywhere in between. “I feel like I spent my whole life just listening to music and didn’t do that much else,” she says. “I don’t really have that many hobbies. Music is an addiction for people who love music.”
Born and raised in Manhattan, Teitelbaum set out to the West Coast when she was 18, with the goal of obtaining a pop music degree at the University of Southern California. She eventually dropped out and began self-releasing synth-tinged pop under the moniker BAUM, before connecting with producer Yves Rothman and unleashing the captivating, grunge-inspired alternative rock that made her one of 2023’s brightest new stars.
Her self-titled debut LP, released that year, was full of intense anthems like “Salad” and “Kiss City,” racking up hundreds of thousands of Spotify streams and helping her land an opening slot for Liz Phair along with her own sold-out headlining tour. Somewhere under the zillions of bright band stickers on one of Rough Trade’s black pillars is the autograph that Teitelbaum left when she played The Tonight Show for the first time. In March, she came back to late night and performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Though the past couple of years have been jam-packed with new achievements and a growing fanbase,Teitelbaum says she’s tried to stay true to who she is. “Things have changed in my life, but I don’t feel like I’m 2.0,” she says. “You don’t have to go and be somebody else to make a new record.”
She began writing the new album not long after the release of her debut in the spring of 2023. “It was sort of picking up where I left off,” she says. If You Asked for a Picture packs a similar punch to the singer’s debut, but finds Blondshell more raw, more real, and with the confidence of knowing what she’s doing.
One element she knew she wanted to incorporate was heavy guitar tones that make you feel like a badass, like the ones found on Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication and Queens of the Stone Age’s Rated R. On the new track “Arms,” Blondshell tells a lover, “I don’t want to be your mom” as grungy guitars swing and crash around her. “I never would’ve thought that I would use [those bands] as a reference, because identity-wise we’re so different,” she says.
Dressed in black trousers and a matching black pea coat, with her blonde, curly hair tied back in a yellow claw clip, Blondshell is the epitome of cool, but in a very different way from Anthony Kiedis and Flea. Moments later, she stumbles upon a heather gray Chili Peppers T-shirt, featuring a pin-up girl in a sexy devil-inspired bodysuit. It’s the perfect embodiment of the feminine-masculine juxtaposition Blondshell is after on the new album. “Look at that,” she says with a knowing smile.
Teitelbaum adds that she had a strong desire for more dynamic vocals on this album. “I wanted my voice to feel more exciting and to show it more,” she says. “That was something that I felt like if I had had more time to make the last album, I would’ve really wanted to spend a ton of time on.”
We’ve moved over to the alternative rock section of the store when she points to the Pixies’ Surfer Rosa. “Their background vocals were a big inspiration,” she says, before also crediting the Beach Boys and girl groups like the Ronettes. Nowhere is this influence more present than her recent single “23’s a Baby,” where Blondshell’s layered harmonies transform the chorus into a chant in the vein of “Be My Baby.”
Throughout the album, the payoff from Blondshell’s perfected melodies is everywhere. “I hate when people use the word ‘vulnerable,’ because I feel like it’s misused all the time,” she says. “For me, it genuinely felt vulnerable to not chase the instinct to just put massive guitars on everything and actually let my voice and my lyrics stand on their own.”
Blondshell has always been fearless in her songwriting. Her breakthrough single “Kiss City” features the daring line “Just look me in the eye when I’m about to finish.” But on If You Asked Me for a Picture, the singer-songwriter goes even deeper. “A lot of this record is saying stuff in the voice of me as a teenager,” she says. “I feel like I wasn’t really able to speak to a lot of this when I was at that age, and all of it wanted to come out now.” Blondshell tackles everything from a fraught relationship with her mother, who died in 2018, to her struggles with OCD, her body image, and troubling dynamics in romantic relationships.
On “Event of a Fire,” her layered vocals admit, “’Cuz I didn’t grow up/And it spilled over/Now I’m left open/When I’m in love.” That idea feels like the entire crux of If You Asked for a Picture, with Blondshell’s emotional burnout laid bare against moody guitars. “That song is partially just about feeling really tired,” she says when I first ask about it. “If you’re well rested, life rocks, and if you’re tired, life sucks.” But with lines like, “Part of me really left her, she was never found/Part of me still sits at home in a panic over 15 pounds,” the song puts her vulnerabilities on full display.
“I didn’t really know any women growing up who didn’t have some element of baggage with their body,” she says. “It’s just another way of saying misogyny. It’s just in the air and in the water. Nobody’s immune to it.” Because of this, it was important for her to be open about her experiences. Growing up, she adds, “I feel like I would’ve benefited from hearing people talk about body image stuff.”
If You Asked for a Picture takes its name from “Dogfish,” a poem by Mary Oliver that she found influential on her latest songs. “I wanted to write that way more on this album — less explaining and more just image, image, image,” she says. On the single “T&A,” she chronicles an unexpected love story and the tug and pull of emotions that come with relationships. “With the last album, I was so binary… it was so ‘I have to write about loving somebody or hating somebody,’” she says. “There’s just obviously more of a spectrum to how you feel about people.”
As Blondshell gears up to share her second album with the world, she couldn’t be more ready. “I feel proud of it,” she says. “I worked really hard.” She’s silent for a second as her eyes catch another record. “I’d like other people to like it and care about it,” she says, before adding, “But I can’t control that.”
