A playful guitar tune that tackles toxic modern day beauty standards, Southend based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Frances Murray aka BLAB has shared her latest single, ‘Age Gracefully’. Released via independent label Cool Thing Records, the track is a lo-fi musing on the unachievable aesthetic ideals that young women are bombarded with via their phone screens, and a gentle reminder not to buy into the bullshit.
“’Age Gracefully’ is an anti-beauty standards anthem for a generation brought up with a distorted perception of reality through social media and insidious marketing,” BLAB explains about her latest release. Following on from her 2021 EP, Word Of Mouth, BLAB continues to reaffirm her anti-establishment, anti-ego message on her new track, sound-tracked by vintage drum machines and buoyant guitar twangs.
Lyrically, BLAB takes aim at everything from Love Island, to wasting your wages on expensive and facials, to the the self-loathing that comes from being relentlessly shown the “picture perfect fantasy” of the daily routines of TV stars and strangers on social media feeds. Rather than being sucked into the despair of it all, BLAB reclaims the natural joy of ageing on her own terms in the chorus, her heartfelt vocals soaring over her melodic riffs, before resolving that “all that I can be is me / and I’m only a human being” at the end of the track.
This single is the first of many releases that BLAB has planned for 2023, so keep an eye out for more tunes from the Essex-based musician.
Listen to ‘Age Gracefully’ below.
Follow BLAB on Spotify, Instagram, Twitter & Facebook
Photo Credit: Cameron Russell
Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut
Get In Her Ears 
Published by