Ever since Syd arrived on the Southern California scene with the avant-garde “Flashlight” at just 16 years old, it’s been clear that the multi-hyphenate artist has a unique capability to sink her teeth into the tender flesh of intimacy and capture lightning-in-a-bottle moments through her music. Her lyricism is both erotic and emotional, a sublime counterpunch to the understated, sapphic sensuality of her production — the combination has shaped a contemporary remix of the Quiet Storm era of R&B. With the 29-year-old artist’s latest album, however, she planned to introduce the world to something new, something deeper: a journey of her love in song.
The now-ironically titled Broken Hearts Club charts out the dizzyingly euphoric highs and nadirs of an ill-fated relationship, inspired by the disintegration of Syd’s own relationship at the beginning of the pandemic. “I started this album when I was in the relationship,” the Odd Future alum and The Internet frontwoman tells Mic. “I remember watching it happen [for others] and be like, damn, sucks for y'all. And then it happened to me.” It’s an experience she can now appreciate for the layers of extenuating circumstances that were at play, but she was only halfway done with the project at the time and had to shelve it to tend to her emotional needs. “I’m actually not a writer who writes when I’m sad,” she says, explaining her struggles with depression. “I didn’t want to write all these love songs about this girl who just dumped me.”
