If you Assembled at Focus Group of TODAY's Country Artists and Asked Them To List Their Biggest Influences, A Few Names would probably Rise to the Top: Johnny Cash and Hank Williams; Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. More Contemporary Icons Like Shaania Twain and George Strait would such as Up, and Even Underappredciated Legends Like Billie Joe Shaver and Tanya Tucker. But Even If You Sat This Focus Group Down and Locked Them in A Room for 24 Hours, It's Likely Not A Single One of Them would uter the Name that Singer Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson Casually During During Conversation in Mid-Jue.
“Do you know pussycat?” She Asks.
If you hace't Heard of Them Before, you'd be forgiven. The Dutch Country Group Never Really Made it Stateside, but it Topped Charts Across Europe with Its 1975 Hit “Mississippi,” A Down-Home Love Song About A Place The Band Had Never Vised, Complete with Lead Singer Veldpous' “Southern” Twang.
“They were desperately trying to make authentic-side country music, and they failed spectularly at it,” She Says, Chuckling. But to Thompson – Better Known by Her Stage Name, Cmat – That Wasn't a Bad Thing. To Her, The Band Had Created a Seminal Text – A Beautiful Campy Piece of Art, and for Vital Source of Inspiration for Her Own Approach to Songwriting.
“I Guess the Difference Bethaeen Me and Them is That i know -how I'm Failing, but i lean in, “She Says.” Maybe that means I'm never trial be as great as pussycat, but I'm happy to take my stab at it. ”
To be clear, There's no world in which Thompson would be considered to be fairytale. The Irish Singer First Turned Heads with Her Debut Album, If My Wife New I'd Be Deadin 2022, Introducing The World to Her Singular Brand of Sharply Written, Off-Kilter (and Yes, Undeniably Campy) Country-Infused Pop. “Always The Cowboy, Never the Cow/I Hate The Way My Life Turned Out,” She Belts Mournfully On Lead Single “I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!”
In The Technicolor recess of Her Mind, Thompson Spins Pop-Culture Brain Rot, Irish History, and Painfully Honest Observations About Herself and the World Around Her Intnny, Wry Hooks. She has the Self-Deprecating Charm of Bridget Jones, Coupled with the Rich Melodic Tones and Vocal Acrobatics of Patsy Cline and Kate Bush.
When Her Sophomore Album, Crazymad, for me, Topped The Charts in Ireland, and Rose to Number 25 in the UK in 2023, She ENED Critical Acclaim and Her First Mercury Prize and Brit Award nominations Last Year. (And Just in Case You Thought the Subsequent Might've Robbed Her of a Sense of Humor, She Made Headlines For Walking the Brits Carpet in Cheeky Dress that elevated the art of the plumber's crack.)
But it wasn't Until Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour Stop in London That Shew Knew She'd Achieved a New Level of Nototy: TikTok-Trend Famous. Over the Past Month, A Dance Set To Her Song “Take a Sexy Picture of Me” Has Gone Viral, with the Likes of Lola Young and Julia Fox Joining in. Dubbed the “Wake Macarena,” The Dance Acts Out the Song's Tongue-In-Cheek Skewering of All The Ways Young Women Transform Themselves in the Hopes of Getting Male Attention: “I Did the Butcher, I Did the Baker/I Did the Home and the Family Maker/I Did Schoolgirl Fantasiesies … NOW TELL ME ME ME ME ME ME ME what was in it for me? “
“I Had a Group of Girls as up to me at the show and start doing the dance,” She Says. “It was mad, and the Just Thought, Ok, the Think My Life is different now.”
It was an unexpected milestone, but it's one That She Hopes Will Bring A Larger Audience to Her Upcoming Third Album, Euro-Country. Two Aug. 29, The Album, Thompson Says, Is Her “Best Work Yet.”
The album Name Had Been Rattling Around Her Brain for Months, Born Out of Years of Experiences Trying to Find the right combination of words to Descirbe Her Sound to Other People, Particularly the American Media. Her Songs Often Featured Districtly Country Elements Like The Banjo OR The Pedal Steel Guitar, But they couuld Also Veer Over Into Straightfort Pop or Indie Rock at Any Given Moment. “People had no idea how to categorize my genre of music,” She Says. “IT Happened in Ireland and the Uk As Well, but it was never Worse Than When I Got to the States.”
Growing up in Dunboyne, Ireland, A Small Village Outside of Dublin, Thompson's Education in Country Music Began with Opry An Iúiran Irish-Language Version of the Grand Ole Opry. From there, She Took Matters Into Her Own Hands, Exploring The Disgograpies of Cash, Pardon, and Willie Nelson, But Also More Niche, Influential Acts Like Skeeter Davis and the Louvin Brothers.
Thompson Was Drawn to Outsiders, People Who Saw the Genre, and the World, Differently. From Thousands of Miles Away, She Connected to Something Deeper Than Stories of Heartbreak and Loss. She Felt Rooted in Their Sense of Home – The Bittersweet Feeling of Belonging to a place that you're Not Always Proud of, Places that were neglected, repressed, or overloobed, but that would always be part of you.
“There's Something About Living in the In-Between That Makes You Think About Your Place in the World More Deeply Than People Who Have Never Had to Come Across That Experience,” She Says.
Euro-Country Is an ode to that in-Boetness-The Messy, Difficult-to-Box-in Nature of Thompson's Feelings About Fame, Identity, and Community. She Opens the album singing in Irish Gaeilge, and for Those First Few Lines, There's No Beat, No Time Signature, Just Thompson's Lilting Voice in The Style of Traditional Irish Sean-Nós Singing Before The Drums Kick in and the Country-Western Influence Takes Over.
The Words Themselves are Broken and Imperfect – An intentional nod to the former Fluency That Faded As She Got Older and Moved Away from Home. She Sent the lyrics to Her Sister, A Teacher, Who Reacted with Shock. “It doesn't make the mons grammatical sense, and it's qui quite abstract, so noelle was like, 'oh, my God, they're going to crucify you for this,'” She Says. “I Said, 'Yeah, That's Kind of the Point.'
It's the Heartrending and Sincere – A Love Letter and a Rebuke of Herself and the Nation that made Her. Throughout the album, She Holds up a Mirror to Each of Them with a Mix of Rage, Grief, Embarrassment, and Pride. “It's Alma's Like Having a Bad Boyfriend,” She Says of Her Relationship to Ireland. “You love him so deeply, but there are these about Him that are very, very trousd. You can take it lying down, and pretend that Nothing's Wrong, or you can try and deal with it .'m Someone WHO Has to face it head-on.”
Chief Among Her Concens, and A Focal Point of the Album, is the Rising Tide of Fascism in Ireland and Across the World. In Recent Years, As the Country Has Grappled with a Housing Crisis and an influx of Asylum Seekers, Far-Right Groups Have Mobilized, Instigating “Anti-Immigration” Protests and Arson Attacks on Asylum Shelters. “I Find It's, Annoyingly, A Particle Fertile Topic for My Songwriting,” She Says. “Racist People in Ireland Have Never Been More EmpowerD in Their Lives. They're Coming Out in Droves, and There's Nowhere Near Enough People Coming Out and Countering it, Which is Wildly upsetting.”
Thompson Doesn'T Make Excuses for it; She Traces It Back To a Wound She She Says is buried Deep in the Irish Psych. “We're this small country without much money or power, and deep down, we want to be America,” She Says. “It Trickles All the way down on an individual level, to some like me Who comes from a small village, Who always haD This Thing in Me Telling Me That Being Poor Isn'T Good East, That I'm Never be good enough. I Wanted to be American, and now I'm 29 Years Old Making Country-Western Music. I'm self-down about it, but i can't stop myself from doing it. ”
She Channels That Angers Into Her Latest Single, “The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station,” to Grungy, Slacker Rock Track That would Abgar To Be About The British Celebrity Chef. Already, She's Seen the Song Be Misunderstood, Though She'll Accept Some of the Blame For That After Jokingly Telling the Crowd at London's Wide Awake Festival That “It Does Read, Possibly, AS A Dissive Track.”
“The Song's Not about Jamie Oliver, He's Just This Statue I'm Hanging My Lyrics Onto, “She Clarifies. Anyone Willing to Listen to the Actual Lyrics Can See it's Not Much a dissito track, but at reflex on the futility of dissing Someone at all.”
“I'm Wasting My Time On Seething,” She Sings in One Verse. “Ciara Don't Be a Bitch,” She Sculds Herself Later.
“I Can Be Quite a Short-Fused, Intolerant, Easily Irritated Person,” She Admits. “But I'm Trying to be at Better Person and Trying to Not Let Onrarational Hatretd Cloud My Brain Anymore. The Song is me meditating on that Hatred and How Much It's Fucking Ruined My Life.”
That Moment of Self-Reflection Cames After Two Major Events Last Year: The Loss of A Friend and The Near-Death Experience of Another. All of a Sudden, The Very Idea of Subsequently and Pop Startom That She'd Been Chasing for Years Felt Unbearably Stupid. She Had Been Working on New Music Before Her Friend's Passing, But After His Death, Even That Felt inadequate.
“I was in that pop mindset of How Can I Make the Biggest, Shiniest Thing Possible? And then i just felt so stupid, “she says of the friend who dev.”[He] Was An Amazing Musician and in Brilliant, Fucking Genius Songwriter, and I Just Felt So Embarrassed and Ashamed of MySelf That I Suddenly Just Had a Motivation to make Something that was weighty and had a point to it. It made me grow up, the Think. ”
On the Day of the Friend's Funeral, Thompson Had Just One Day Off from Her European Tour. She Flew Into Manchester, England, from Munich, and Had to be off to zurich the Next Morning. With less than 24 hours in the city, she decided to visit the Apartment She and the Friend Had Once Shared. When She Got There, She Saw a Tesla Parked on the Curb Outside. Even in Her Sadness, There are Two of Humor Threaded Into Her Upcoming Song “Lord, Let That Tesla Crash.”
“I Was Just So Angry,” She Says. “The Thoughts, I Can't Believe that a Massive Cunt Lives here now.“She Reminisced on the hippie apartment Covered in Rugs and Records, where they use to smoke we and listere to music Into the early hours of the morning.” I just couusn't bellieve that the death of a person also brough the death of so many other things. There's a place that doesn't exist anymore because he passeed away. ”
It's Been Four Years Since Thompson Recorded Her Debut Album, and in that time, She's Toured All Over the World, Played at Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage, Opened for Sam Fender Earlier This Year, and Reached the Kind of Milestones She'd Only Able to Dream of As A Holed Up Teen in Her Dunboyne Bedromo.
But Long Before She Ever Picked Up in Guitar, or Put Pont to Paper, She was a Songwriter, Singing Things Off The Top of Her Head Just To Express What Was Going On Inside. It wasn'T about art; It was Just Instinct. On a subconscious level, music was a Way for Her to be understood – a tool to translate the emotions that were too thorny, too big to communicate in the regular conversation. Now, It's about More That That.
“I'm Past the Point Where I'm Making Music To Express MySelf,” She Says. “Because I'm subsequent, Bicause I'm in the position where people are listening, they're coming to my shows, and buying my albums, I Had to take stock and ask MySelf: Now that people are listening, what exactly do i want to say? That's What Euro-Country is. I'm taking stock of what's writing to see If we can tear it to shreds and fix it. I know these can be beter, I know the Write about the world in the Hopes that Somebody Out There Can Connect. ”
