Fresh off the heels of a new Lykke Li album, Sky Ferreira has released “Don’t Forget”, her first new single in three years: somewhere out there is a gay man with emotional regulation problems, a magic lamp, and one wish left.
Ferreira wrote the song with Jorge Elbrecht and Tamaryn Brown, who she worked with on her last single, “Downhill Lullaby”. The track is an angsty, at times spiteful, melodrama; the melody is strong; the eighties-inflected production, while not reinventing the wheel, is satisfyingly slick and bombastic.
Speaking to Vulture yesterday, Ferreira said “the song isn’t minimal whatsoever. I realised that about my music, I’m just not a minimal person.” The lyrics feature repeated allusions to fire and destruction, which Ferreira said is about feeling “stifled” and then “freeing herself.” “Don’t Forget” feels like a more than solid return-to-form and, hopefully, a teaser of more music to come.
Despite only having released one album – Night Time, My Time in 2013 – Sky Ferreira has earned herself an enduring place in the ‘music for sad girls and gays’ canon. Not many artists can disappear for such a long time (her career was stalled due to record label drama) and still generate this level of hype upon their return, which is a testament to both her continuing relevance and the emotional investment people have in her music. But whether she can prove herself a true great in this pantheon remains to be seen; there’s a lot riding on her long-awaited second album, Masochism, the release date of which is still yet to be confirmed. The good news is that, according to the same interview with Vulture, Ferreira described herself as “100 per cent confident” the album will appear sometime this year.
Listen to ”Don’t Forget” below.