Janet Devlin is back with tongue in cheek social commentary
When Janet Devlin auditioned for the X Factor in UK 2011, she was the one to beat. Her endearing rendition of Elton John’s ‘Your Song’ was viewed all over the world. Janet made it to the live shows and finished in fifth position and decided not to sign with a major label afterwards, but worked on her debut album Hide and Seek, funded through Pledge Music, which was released in 2013. A new version, called Running With Scissors, followed a year later and now Devlin is back with the all sorts of brilliant new single ‘Outernet Song’.

We have to admit, social commentary has never sounded this catchy before. There are a few things the young singer-songwriter from Ireland is not happy with and she addresses this in the song’s lyrics. Firstly there is the beauty ideals girls have to live up to (“Endless beauty routines, brainwashing our teens, ruining self esteem”), then there is online bullying to which she has some sharp answers (“‘When you sing you sound like a ten year old. You’re that ginger kid from a TV show.’ If you don’t like what you hear then turn it off, it’s not like I’m being played on the radio”) and last but not least or fixation on being ‘liked’ on social media (“Anything for a like, anything for a share, anything for a retweet, where’s all my followers?”). Lyrically this song is very much on point and in combination with the cute sounding ukulele and the carefree sounding melody, she creates the right atmosphere to get her message across, without taking herself all too seriously.

I love how she mentions the lack of airplay in her career so far and refers to her time on the X Factor as her ’15 minutes of fame’. In the music video, in which Janet plays different types of girls, she even appears on screen in her audition outfit, poking fun at the shy girl she was back then. Although there is definitely truth in Janet’s message that we should take some more time off the internet and social media, we can’t help but play her video on YouTube once more!