the greatest album of all time<\/em>, and it feels like watching a shy kid blossom in front of a talent show crowd.<\/p>\n\n\tStel first came onto the scene in 2024 with her debut EP, Object Permanence<\/em>, though she says she\u2019s made music since she was seven. For years, she psyched herself out of sharing what she was making. \u201cIt\u2019s just so lame to be so afraid of what people think that you make all this music for years and never release it because you\u2019re scared it\u2019s not perfect or something,\u201d she says. Releasing those first songs helped put the stakes in perspective: \u201cIf you drop a shitty EP, you\u2019re going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tIt turns out she had nothing to worry about. Object Permanence<\/em> found a devoted audience as Stel\u2019s open-faced vulnerability meshed with her left-field pop sensibility. Songs like \u201cYou Could Hate Me\u201d and the later single \u201cI\u2019ll Take It\u201d infused the hyperactive electro-pop of the early 2010s with a melodic curiosity that could recall Future\u2019s melancholic crooning as readily as Rihanna\u2019s dance-floor yearning or the warped guitar pop of ML Buch.<\/p>\n\n\tReleasing the songs, she found, meant learning when to stop working on them. She settled on her six best and tried to \u201cwork really hard at not losing touch with them or overdoing it, just try and believe in the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWith last year\u2019s How to Win at Solitaire<\/em>, the accumulation of years making music by herself became apparent. The EP\u2019s sonic palette \u2014 a lush collage of electronic, trap, and ambient music, guided by sticky melodies doused in an almost ghostly Auto-Tune \u2014 felt like a distillation of the moment. Access to disparate sounds is already a given. Stel\u2019s achievement is making those influences into a language for expressing a real feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\u201cBeing kind and confident is the best way you can be in life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGriffin Lotz for Rolling Stone<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tFor years, Stel supported herself with jobs that left room for music. She worked as a gardener, bartender, and house painter, gradually dropping each job as she began earning money from shows. Painting was the last to go. \u201cI was always shaping my life to have space for music, if that makes sense, picking jobs,\u201d she says. \u201cHouse painting is the best job because all day I\u2019m maybe listening to an audiobook or not listening to anything, just painting a wall thinking about music, and then you come home and you\u2019re so excited to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe had made peace with the possibility that this would be her life. \u201cI\u2019ll probably work during the day and then come home and make music,\u201d she remembers thinking. \u201cI was like, that\u2019s OK. It\u2019s just who I am, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe new album\u2019s title began with an earlier interview following the success of How to Win at Solitaire<\/em>. Stel says her remark that, like everyone else, she wanted to make the greatest album of all time appeared as a declaration that she was going to do it. She decided to use the title herself, making that level of confidence part of the assignment.<\/p>\n\n\tFollowing the success of her first two EPs, she suddenly found herself at last year\u2019s Paris Fashion Week before even receiving her record label advance, trying to navigate settings she felt unprepared for. \u201cI literally have one outfit and I\u2019m so not prepared and I don\u2019t know how to act,\u201d she remembers thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\t\u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019m going to make an album that helps me to feel the type of confidence that I feel like I need going into these rooms,\u2019\u201d she continues. \u201cAnd I think that being kind and confident is the best way you can be in life. Too much insecurity makes you hold yourself back, but it also makes you treat people poorly because you\u2019re trying to make yourself feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n