Pixie Lott

“I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since my last album, but I’m so excited to be back doing what I love the most,” beams Pixie Lott. “I’m taking risks this time. Previously, I’ve sung other people’s songs and gone in the direction others have envisioned for me but nobody really ever pushed me to try the things I wanted. Maybe, I even thought I wasn’t worthy of doing that. It’s scary but I’m going with my heart now – I want to show other sides of myself.”

It’s a surprisingly bold, admirably vulnerable statement to make, not least coming from a star who’s already achieved so much in so many different mediums. Since selling 1.6 million copies of her 2009 debut album Turn It Up, Pixie has notched up three UK No.1 tracks, sold in excess of four million singles, secured four BRIT nominations, won 2 MTV EMA Awards, all while collaborating with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Pusha T, Jason Derulo and Lionel Richie. Elsewhere, she has fronted campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana, performed at Fendi’s Paris Fashion Week, judged The Voice Kids (coaching four winners to victory!) appeared as a guest judge on The X Factor and more. Despite all of this success, Pixie knew she needed to make a big change for her next chapter. She needed to finally take full control of her career.

“Until a few years ago, I was releasing one-off songs, chasing trends, and I felt like that was what I had to do,” she reflects. “I love performing dance stuff, but it doesn’t always satisfy me. I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really want to put out another song that I’m not connected to?’”

The future Pixie envisioned for herself didn’t revolve around dance bangers, but rather songs she had privately been working on as a passion project with acclaimed producers and songwriters Jeeve (Bruno Mars, Britney Spears) and Dave Gibson (James Arthur, Louis Tomlinson). Songs she had co-written and co-produced at Jeeve’s studio in Encino, California and even self-funded for five years, before signing to Tag8/BMG last year. Songs that transcended her pop roots to explore band-led sounds and arrangements. Songs freighted with autobiographical meaning. Songs that have now come to make up her excellent fourth album, Encino. It isn’t just a conscious decoupling from dance-orientated pop, it’s the start of a new era for Pixie as an artist in control for the first time.

Anthemic opener Show You Love offers immediate proof of concept as her incredible vocals soar over a burst of uplifting guitars and soulful keys. Leaning on influences such as Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell and Joe Cocker, it’s Pixie as you’ve never heard her before. ‘I’ve always wanted to do something with a timeless, classic sound that could be played at any point in time,’ she says, proudly. Indeed, Pixie is already hard at work with her new band to rehearse the Encino tracks for tour, as well as give her old classics “a big, gritty live flavour”. Untethering herself from the pop production line has changed more than just her sound, too…

“From 14 years old, I was working with loads of producers and then never seeing them again,” she recalls. “That’s how the pop machine works. But how are you ever going to build a creative rapport? It’s only when you know each other well that you can open up about your feelings. I got that with Dave and Jeeve on Encino; there’s a deeper, darker side that I’ve never shown before.”

Look no further than Say So, an elegant yet bruised piano-led track that came out of her time starring as Holly Golightly in the UK production of Truman Capote’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s in 2016…

“It was an amazing experience, but by the end of it I was a shell of a person,” she reveals. “I was playing a character every night who loses everything: her baby, her husband, her life. I really pushed myself hard to get to that place emotionally. I would be looking at pictures of my own family beforehand and I would cry my eyes out onstage every night. Doing that over and over takes its toll. I had my first panic attack, and I didn’t know what it was… I thought I was dying. I just hope that by speaking out on this song and saying that it’s ok not to be ok, I can help other people.”

Pixie has always radiated this uplifting outlook. Throughout her career, she’s been an advocate and ambassador for Prince’s Trust, Cardiac Risk In The Young, Rays Of Sunshine, Wellchild and Alzheimers Research UK, as well as founding her own performing arts school in Essex with her family in 2015, the Pixie Lott Performing Arts Academy. She continues to exude this spirit in her music, too. On Somebody’s Daughter, yet another standout Encino track and the album’s lead single, she turns her pen towards toxic online behaviour and bullying in general. “I try not to read any negative stuff online, but even then sometimes you accidentally see the worst things,” she says. “Somebody’s Daughter is a reminder that we’re all human – we need to be kind.”

Elsewhere, Encino abounds with songs of romance, family and memory. Anybody Else is a devotional ode to her husband Oliver, Vintage celebrates the joys of a lived-in romance and Further From Love tackles maintaining a long-distance relationship. Stars carries a message of deep appreciation for her family while Encino’s catchiest moment arrives with the nostalgic gem Blockbuster Video. Initially inspired by Pixie reminiscing about all of the different places she has lived over the years, its ear-worm of a chorus details her old Friday night trips to Blockbuster. “It’s a core memory: me, my dad and brother fighting over what video to rent at Blockbuster,” she smiles. “Oh, and mum getting annoyed because of the late return charge.”

Many of these new tracks are also filtered through a fresh outlook on life. For one, Pixie embraced meditation in her time of personal crisis, with the words to All We Have Is Now capturing one particular epiphany from that period of self-discovery and healing. The lyrics to Happy have taken on a new meaning for her after giving birth to her son Albert in 2023. “The lyrics to that song feel even more powerful now Bertie is here, my whole perspective has changed,” she explains. “It just makes you realise what’s important instead of sweating the small stuff.”

Another key track is Midnight Trash – a soul track so instantly anthemic, you may not immediately register the tough subject that inspired it. “It’s about breaking up with insomnia,” she laughs of the song she penned with her former collaborator Pete Zizzo and co-produced by Thomas Mitchener. “At the time I couldn’t sleep with anxiety, my chest was so tight. It sounds like it’s a break-up song but it’s actually positive.”

Other songs see Pixie wrestle with the music industry, and her place within it. Coco, a slow-burn piano ballad, addresses artistic alienation – the wish that the music business could make her feel as good as wearing her favourite Coco Chanel perfume. “I give everything to my music,” Pixie explains. “But I’ve been through all sorts of ups and downs – you don’t always get back what you put in. It is a crazy, amazing business – but it can be ruthless. Through all of that, my passion for it has never died.”

Encino comes to a triumphant close with the gorgeous acoustic track Comes Back Around. What started out with Pixie taking inspiration from T.S Eliot’s line ‘The end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time’ evolved into a career reflection. A look back on the journey that led her to taking control and releasing Encino. 

“It’s my favourite song on the record, and it had to be the last track,” she explains. “It sums everything up: how I’ve ended up realising that all I truly needed was the freedom to be myself. It’s been really amazing to finally have my vision come to life and it not be watered down or changed. I just hope people can see all of different sides of me now.”