Anne-Marie celebrates her birthday on first single of new era
British pop artist Anne-Marie is ready to kick off the second era in her career. She first came on the scene with the brilliant pop tunes ‘Alarm’ and ‘Ciao Adios’, which hit the charts late 2016 and early 2017. She had massive hits with Clean Bandit collaboration ‘Rockabye’ and Marshmello tune ‘Friends’ and dropped her hit-and-miss debut album Speak Your Mind back in 2018. Anne-Marie just released her new single ‘Birthday’ and ithe hay days of ‘Alarm’ suddenly seem long gone.

Believe me when I say I was rooting hard for Anne-Marie when she was first coming out, but the album did not fully live up to the expectations some of the singles created and now ‘Birthday’ simply does not cut it as a comeback single after almost two years. The hiphop inspired pop tune sounds like it wants to create a similar vibe to Ariana Grande’s ‘7 Rings’, but it misses all the components that made that song iconic. The lyrics to ‘Birthday’ are clunky and predictable and the whole careless party girl vibe feels contrived. “It’s my birthday, I’ma do what I like, I’ma eat what I like, I’ma kiss who I like.” It’s just so…unimaginative. The same goes for the hook unfortunately. The chorus just plods along, without offering anything that makes me want to hit that replay button.

Having said all that, the pretty in pink music video is probably the most enjoyable thing about this whole release and the whole birthday theme of the song might actually be a smart move for its streaming numbers, as it will end up in loads of birthday playlists. Personally, I just hope Anne-Marie has something more interesting to offer with her next release.