Sheffield artist Self Esteem gains recognition as second album is named The Times Album of the Year

Rebecca Taylor, whose stage name is Self Esteem, released her new album, Prioritise Pleasure in October just before her UK tour, to high acclaim.

The single, I Do This All The Time, was released in April and won praise from singer songwriters Tracey Thorn and Jack Antonoff – it was also named the Guardian’s song of the year.

Rebecca started her musical journey at part of the Sheffield born folk duo Slow Club in 2006. Now, aged 35 she is making an impact with as a solo artist with her experimental pop style.

Earlier this year, Rebecca told the Sheffield Telegraph: "I had written most of the songs for the album before lockdown started, but there was this period of time that I could work hard on what the album was going to be. Between the two lockdowns I recorded it, and then I listened to it non-stop in the third one, and realised what I needed mix-wise so it was a really amazing way to make an album, full of consideration. Enforced by a global pandemic.”

The tracks come from a place of personal experience, covering break-ups getting older, the question of whether to have children, and in the case of I Do This All The Time, all three.

Rebecca added: "I believe people are really relating to it, but it is my deeper inner secrets about how much I don’t know what I think about anything and how conflicted I am the whole time, and how uncomfortable I am all the time, and how alone I feel.

“Now everyone has gone, ‘me too!’ It’s like we have all been bluffing to each other, and it is sort of beautiful that everyone is hearing it and feeling better for hearing someone else being miserable."

On November 12 this year, Self Esteem fulfilled a childhood dream and performed at The Leadmill, a place she had been queuing up to get in since she was 15.

She added: “I feel good in Sheffield, there’s a slowness and relaxedness when I am up there.”

Rebecca is also due to perform at the Tramlines Festival in Sheffield in 2022.