Brace yourselves, society—because Julia Michaels just ripped off the glittery filter of pop and slammed down a six-track sledgehammer called Second Self. The singer-songwriter-turned-sonic-therapist isn’t asking for your attention with this one—she’s demanding your soul bare-knuckled and mascara-streaked, served up raw under a strobe-lit confessional.
Second Self isn’t your ex’s breakup EP. This is not the glossy heartbreak that plays safely in the background while you sip overpriced lattes and pretend you’re over him. No, baby—this one smokes outside the club screaming, “I’m NOT OK, and neither are you!”
In a revelatory tête-à-tête with Rolling Stone, Michaels peeled back the curtain on both herself and the moody sonic temple she’s built. “It’s songs they can dance to or scream at an ex to,” she says. Emphasis on the “or”—because this EP is an emotional mosh pit where catharsis whiplashes between sobbing in the dark and twerking through your tears.
Let’s be honest: Julia Michaels has always been a lyrical sniper—crafting precision heartbreak for other superstars before she stepped into her own chaos. But this time? Baby, she didn’t just step—she cracked the floorboards, crawled inside her own psyche, and started rearranging furniture.
Each track on Second Self is like the second glass of wine during a therapy session—where the truth actually spills. It’s confessional poetry with a beat, wrapped in the sonic equivalent of a glitter bomb going off inside a thrift-store diary. There’s rage. There’s release. There are melodies that seduce you into healing in stilettos.
But let’s get metaphysical for a second—this EP is not just music. It’s rebellion in 4/4 time. It’s what happens when a woman who’s been the ghostwriter of everyone else’s diaries decides to onset her own haunting. It’s vulnerability weaponized. Raw unfiltered storytelling? Try raw unfiltered existence.
Forget the perfectly-curated sadness of your playlist—this is grief that punches back. Heartbreak that moonwalks. Healing that bruises.
And in a world that’s constantly asking women to “be okay” faster, quieter, prettier—Julia took a blowtorch to that demand and lit her second self on fire, just so we could warm our hands and dance around it.
Here’s the real plot twist: Julia Michaels is no longer the understated voice behind someone else’s chart-toppers. With Second Self, she declares herself the main character, the narrator, the storm, the silence. She doesn’t whisper her stories anymore—she detonates them like emotional fireworks exploding in an echo chamber of pretense. And guess what? It’s gorgeous.
So here’s your invitation: scream it, sing it, survive it. You want culture? You want evolution? You want truth dressed in a sequin minidress and Doc Martens? Second Self is the anthem for everyone clawing their way through the DMs of their demons, one primal scream at a time.
This isn’t just music. This is Michaels painting her masterpiece in heartbreak and releasing it under a disco ball.
Dare to be different or fade into oblivion.
– Mr. KanHey
