{"id":73121,"date":"2026-09-19T14:03:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T14:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/19\/tinashe-on-new-album-popstar-creative-choices-feeling-pressure\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T14:03:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T14:03:33","slug":"tinashe-on-new-album-popstar-creative-choices-feeling-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/19\/tinashe-on-new-album-popstar-creative-choices-feeling-pressure\/","title":{"rendered":"Tinashe on New Album ‘Popstar,’ Creative Choices, Feeling Pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tTinashe<\/a> is still one week away from the release of her eighth studio album, Popstar<\/em>, and she can feel the pressure building. In the past, her records have arrived not exactly quietly, but often under the radar. Something different is happening with this one. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of attention, there\u2019s a lot of discussion,\u201d she tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cPeople are ready for it, which is a new feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTinashe is in New York to kick off Coach and Spotify\u2019s Tabby Tour event series with a performance for a yard full of fans who flocked to lower Manhattan with just a few hours notice. There\u2019s talk amongst the crowd about the album, but nothing as loud or abrasive as the chatter happening online about everything from her album cover to her single choices to her strong, vocal opinions about her album cover and single choices. Popstar <\/em>was always meant to open up a bigger conversation. It\u2019s just getting started a little early.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted to create a record that felt very confident and bold in its title, in its taking up space, in its arrival, like announcing that I\u2019m here,\u201d Tinashe says. \u201cCalling the album Popstar<\/em>, I felt like really claiming a spot for myself. I think that that level of confidence has also created more conversation, perhaps a little more pressure around the whole thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis past week, Tinashe has made her stance clear online with fans and spectators who have decided they aren\u2019t sold on Popstar<\/em>. There\u2019s been lots of talk about the album cover, which zooms in close on her face to show a ring of stars in her eyes and she stares forward in a trancelike state. Her headphones are on in the picture, fitting for an album made for an intentional rather than passive listening experience. Someone on X told her she should have chosen one of the promotional images instead, particularly one capturing her sitting on the edge of a building with a view of the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles in the back. \u201cNot every creative choice is as simple as \u2018oh this picture is pretty,\u2019\u201d she replied<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cAs a consumerist society, that\u2019s really easy to be like, \u2018This looks the best, this the flashiest, this could get your attention, this is the hit song, this is the soundbite, this is the TikTok clip that\u2019s gonna go viral,\u2019\u201d Tinashe says now. \u201cTo be a true artist, you have to be able to transcend that and push against that because once we are focused on that, it just narrows the creative process. We\u2019re so much more layered than a thumbnail or a soundbite.\u201d The cover she chose for the album was selected with the intention of creating conversation. It\u2019s alluring to the eye, and almost unsettling if you look into her eyes for too long. \u201cThe cover is not what you would expect in terms of the flashiest, most pop<\/a>-star-esque visual,\u201d she says. \u201cThat is, to me, the key, because it makes me think there\u2019s more to the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tTinashe has previewed Popstar <\/em>with five singles already. \u201cPillow Fight\u201d couldn\u2019t be more distinct from \u201cCrash Out,\u201d which exists on an entirely separate spectrum than \u201cMelatonin,\u201d which shows a different dimension than \u201cToo Easy\u201d <\/a>and \u201cI\u2019d Rather Be Alone.\u201d \u201cCrash Out\u201d is a highlight among the batch, a percussive-heavy track about trying to maintain focus through a storm of questioning voices. There are 11 more songs waiting on the other side of the album release that will expand on the themes presented in the singles. Tinashe is confident enough in the record to not care too much when someone on X tells her, \u201cStep ya game up or I\u2019m not tuning in\u201d because they only like one song so far. \u201cBy all means,\u201d she replied<\/a>. \u201cPlease do not tune in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt does feel like we\u2019re in an era where people are a bit more averse to nuance and aren\u2019t taking the time to really dig into why choices are made creatively,\u201d Tinashe says. \u201cIt\u2019s really important for artists to stick to their guns in that sense and not just put out things that are very easily palatable.\u201d She doesn\u2019t come across as overly defensive in her replies, maybe just a little annoyed at the lack of effort on these fans\u2019 part to engage thoughtfully with the material, all while making the demands of a major-label executive from behind a screen. She\u2019s not taking feedback from them, either.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tTinashe has been operating independently since 2019, when she split from RCA Records. At the time, her manager described the departure as \u201cgiving her back creative control\u201d after five years and three albums. There were times during that earlier point in her career where she was pushed to record <\/a>music she didn\u2019t feel connected to, and others where creative differences<\/a> delayed release timelines for months. She can\u2019t be faulted, then, for not wanting to take artistic advice from Stan Twitter. There are important conversations happening in these online spaces about which artists are shaping the pop landscape, or making decisions that stand out from the onslaught of releases. But fans also have a habit of flattening the dimensions of what they\u2019re consuming. Simply put, Tinashe says, \u201cNuance is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe conversation to me is bigger than just the fans, it\u2019s bigger than the artist. It\u2019s really the system that we\u2019ve set up and how artists are allowed to thrive,\u201d she says. \u201cWe make it very black and white, and we reduce it to something that can be so much more reductive than what an artist typically has to say in all the layers of something.\u201d We\u2019ve seen how pop discourse can draw meaningful parallels to bigger developments in culture, enough to know there\u2019s value to those conversations \u2014 but only if they aren\u2019t contained to the limited space of an online timeline. \u201cI don\u2019t have the answer to how to fix this problem,\u201d Tinashe says. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s just continuing to be authentic and not feel like you have to limit yourself, or overly censor yourself in certain ways to fit in or appeal to a certain demographic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a rule of thumb that has worked for her peers whose breakout moments coincided with her own in the 2010s, like Charli XCX<\/a> and Zara Larsson. <\/a>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of us girls who have been working and grinding for 10-plus years in the game,\u201d Tinashe says. \u201cI can only speak for myself, but how I\u2019ve felt is that I\u2019ve been perhaps underrated. [We\u2019ve] constantly just been working with our heads down, grinding, grinding, grinding, grinding. You get to a point where you kind of have this breakout moment. It\u2019s so exciting to see. I\u2019m so proud and happy for all my peers and the girls who have been doing it for a decade as well who are getting their moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tIn August, Charli posted on X<\/a>, \u201cTinashe melodies go hardddd.\u201d A few weeks later, PinkPantheress raved about \u201cCrash Out\u201d in another post<\/a>. \u201cSong of the year,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry but she\u2019s taking it.\u201d None of these artists have ever quite approached pop in a predictable or straightforward way. Instead, they\u2019ve shifted the collective understanding of what the genre looks and sounds like in the 2020s. \u201cPeople have a very narrow understanding of what pop means nowadays, and it\u2019s very clean, it\u2019s very mainstream, it\u2019s very white, and it\u2019s very contrived,\u201d Tinashe says. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to question that. There are so many people outside of that binary that do what I would consider pop, and so I\u2019d like to bring those people into the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the countdown to Popstar <\/em>continues, Tinashe is welcoming the pressure as long as it gets people not only talking, but thinking. It\u2019s nothing she can\u2019t handle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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