New York’s BEST EX Waltzes Away From Bad Boyfriends On New Summer Anthem
"Best Ex have found a way to embrace change—this poppy positioning might just be Loveland’s perfect fit" - ALT PRESS
“Exemplifies what pop does so well…respite from a world that won't stop for anyone's heartache" - Exclaim!
"A reality that is much more fun—a new melancholy much boppier, a world more delightful" - EARMILK
New York’s BEST EX Waltzes Away From Bad Boyfriends On New Summer Anthem
‘Tell Your Friends’ Released 25th May 2023 via Alcopop! Records (UK) + Iodine Recordings (US)
Watch the video - https://youtu.be/QeBF0KnOmZk
Stream and share - https://bfan.link/tell-your-friends
NYC-based indie pop songwriter BEST EX (aka Mariel Loveland) is pleased to announce her return with a video for her punchy new single ‘Tell Your Friends’, set for release on 25th May 2023 via Alcopop! Records (UK) and Iodine Recordings (US).
“I think society has a way of telling women that we are too much, especially in relationships,” says Loveland of her bright yet melancholic waltzy new track. “We're constantly told that we need too much and want too much and expect too much. As a result, so many of us shrink ourselves and ignore our needs to make others happy,” she says. Loveland adds that the song is about the slow realisation that the problem isn't being “too much.” It’s that those who force us to shrink ourselves for their comfort aren’t enough.
‘Tell Your Friends’ is the first sampling of further music to come from Loveland this year, with more news arriving over the coming months.
Living in the shadow of NYC in Northern New Jersey, Mariel Loveland got her start battling it out in the rough and tumble suburban scene with her nostalgia-tinged punk outfit Candy Hearts in 2010. Within two short years, she went from playing basements across the East Coast to sharing the stage with pop punk heavyweights like Man Overboard, New Found Glory and Weezer.
After a final stint on Vans Warped Tour in 2015, she adopted the moniker Best Ex, trading energetic guitars for fuzzed-out synths, dreamy acoustics and a melodic sweet tooth that rivalled Carly Rae Jepson and Sky Ferreira. Her subsequent two solo EPs—Ice Cream Anti-Social (2017) and Good At Feeling Bad (2020)—were met with critical acclaim from US publications Billboard and Alternative Press, landing UK airplay on BBC R1.
The first new material since then from the songwriter, ‘Tell Your Friends’ has its origins in the summer of 2021, when the world was slowly getting back to normal post-Covid lockdowns. “I remember walking back in the summer rain, soaking wet, listening to a rough, unfinished version, and imagining what the world would be like when I finally got to share it. Would there be a place for upbeat breakup songs in a world still grieving? Complaining about boys seemed so trivial when we were legitimately afraid to go outside, but then it hit me. It *is* trivial. We should have cut the weight that held us down and ignored the noise a long time ago. We should’ve never tried to fit into boxes we were never gonna fit in. There are more important things to waste our time with as our world collectively heals. That’s what this song is about.”
After inking a new US record deal with Iodine Recordings, the singer-songwriter is now gearing up for the release of Best Ex’s debut full length later this year.
