Shura – I Got Too Sad For My Friends

Today, British singer-songwriter and producer Shura releases her new album I Got Too Sad For My Friends via Play It Again Sam and shares the focus track “I Wanna Be Loved By You”.

The years since her last album forevher have been turbulent in ways both good and bad. Shura became a pro-streamer, played Baldur’s Gate 3 (twice), and made the Love Lies Bleeding-influenced decision to become a muscle mommy. On the flipside, the pandemic forced her to abandon the forevher tour midway and knocked her sense of identity in the process. Music became too painful to listen to. Living in New York and separated from family, she began pre-grieving for her loved ones while having a very real health scare of her own. She was physically isolated from friends, and felt emotionally isolated by them in turn. 

Though it’s an album rooted in themes of depression and loneliness, I Got Too Sad For My Friends is far from downcast, it’s an album that stays fully present in its feelings and plunges its fingers into the earth – even when it can be painful to do so. Produced by Luke Smith (Foals, Shygirl, Depeche Mode) and featuring collaborations with the aforementioned Cassandra Jenkins, Becca Mancari and Helado Negro, it retains Shura’s usual crystalline sound and precision while introducing a different kind of warmth and earthiness. 

The spirit of sixties New York runs through I Got Too Sad For My Friends, which mixes the soft psych and folk elements of the Greenwich Village scene with a contemporary pop flair. That’s partly because the city has played such a large role in Shura’s life, and partly because she ended up unexpectedly moving back to the UK while making the album. She left the apartment she shared with her partner to do some songwriting in London, not realizing that she wouldn’t be allowed to return. Its name a nod to a road that runs through Greenpoint, “Leonard Street” says the goodbye to New York that she never got to deliver in person.

Adding to its traditional feel, the recording process aimed to capture a performance rather than a production. Much of I Got Too Sad For My Friends was recorded live, with the keys, bass, guitar, and drums all tracked as a single performance. Finding herself drawn to new textures and landscapes, the live tracks were later sprinkled with woodwind, percussion, and occasional flurry of a Hammond organ.

The album release was preceded by three singles – the celestial bloom of “Recognise”, the melancholy warmth of “Richardson” ft. Cassandra Jenkins and the playfully anthemic pop of “World’s Worst Girlfriend”. 

On the tender, heartfelt piano ballad “I Wanna Be Loved By You”, Shura distills a vast emotional landscape – “all the types of love that there are” – with the intimacy of a candlelit singalong. Underscoring that feeling, a chorus of voices join her like a ramshackle gospel choir, including her partner, family and friends, echoing the song’s message of communal, all-encompassing love.

Shura says: “I Wanna Be Loved By You is a song about every type of love, the complexity of your relationships to other humans, the journey and ultimately just wanting to be loved by them. It’s about trying to forgive and not always succeeding and I’m joined by a chorus of my partner, my friends and family all singing together – all pulling together to try and make something beautiful by singing at the top of our lungs.” 

#shura