YUNGBLUD has released his hotly-anticipated new single, ‘fleabag’.
The 24-year-old rocker is back with his first new music since his chart-topping second studio album, ‘Weird!’, which flew to the top of charts in December.
The emotional track, which the star has hailed a “kick back” towards the world, is about a period when the singer felt “alienated” and weighed down by people’s “expectations” of him.
In a lengthy statement, YUNGBLUD explained: “I wrote ‘fleabag’ in a really dark time of my life, when a lot of people around me had an expectation about what I should be. To tell you the truth it’s about being f****** gutted about people judging me and trying to tear me down. I felt so alienated, I felt so alone.
“When everybody else has an expectation of what you should be or have their own version of your truth it messes with your brain because you start to think ‘maybe they’re right, maybe they do know what’s best for me, maybe I should change who I am,’ but ultimately I believe to my core – it’s the foundation I built my whole ideology around, that self-expression and the right to be unconditionally yourself is the best thing you can be. Nobody should determine how you express yourself except YOU. You are brilliant, you are beautiful, you are individual just by breathing. This song is a kick back. A kick back against the world, a kick back against my friends, against my family and some of my fanbase. I am who I am, all I want to do is spread love and lead with my heart. I’ve always told people to be themselves, sometimes I have to remember that message myself.”
The ‘Strawberry Lipstick’ hitmaker admitted this week that being YUNGBLUD got too much for him at one point because he was too focused on what other people expected of him and were saying about him online.
The musician “preaches” about the importance of being yourself to his fans, but admitted he “forgot to do that myself”.
He said: “I’m not going to be the same artist that I am today as I am tomorrow. With success, and whatever the f*** “fame” means, comes expectation. I think it’s really scary to fall into people’s expectations, an artist should never become an expectation because you’re not an expectation, that’s the definition of being an artist. I’m going to do what I want, say what I feel, lead with my heart like I always do and I’m going to love as hard as I f****** can. I’m going to love my fans and hopefully they f****** love me back for whatever journey I want to take them on.”