Sophia Michaels
All artists have regrets. Though Demi Lovato maintains success as a singer and an actor, that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t what wonder could have been different. Learn why Lovato’s status as a pop star is a far cry from what she grew up listening to, and how she would amend that if she could.
Demi Lovato began her career as a teenager
When you think of Lovato, you likely think of pop music. She started at the Disney Channel starring in Camp Rock, with her first album through Hollywood Records, Don’t Forget, following shortly after that.
In comparison to the other Disney stars of the time, Lovato’s music was considered a bit more “punk rock” than the rest. However, it was still classified as pop, as all of her subsequent albums have been, despite notes of R&B and other genres.
Lovato showed a different side with ‘I Love Me (emo version)’
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhYQsXfYy9c?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
Lovato’s seventh album is in progress as of May 2020. However, she’s already released a few singles, including “I Love Me.” The self-love anthem debuted in March and was followed by an emo remix (above). This took some fans who are more familiar with her as a pop star by surprise.
But that certainly wasn’t Lovato’s first time dabbling in this area. As Emo Nite co-founder Morgan Freed pointed out when she came on the Ride or Cry Podcast, not only has she worked with Fall Out Boy (“Irresistible“) and We the Kings (“We’ll Be A Dream“) in the past, but she sang the Paramore hit “Misery Business” at one of their past events. He called it “one of the best moments that has happened since Emo Nite [began].”
She grew up with the genre
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og9NKaSageo?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
RELATED: ‘I Love Me’ Remix: Was Demi Lovato Really an Emo Kid in the Myspace Era?
Lovato knowing the lyrics to “Misery Business” isn’t all that surprising, given the music she grew up listening to. She includes Paramore on the list of the bands she loved as a young teen, along with more mainstream artists like Simple Plan, deeper emo cuts such as From First to Last, and even dipping into different subgenres of metal. And she explained on the podcast why emo music meant so much to her.
“In our generation, the group of ‘misfits,’ we all found peace and acceptance in emo music because they were singing the same things that we felt. They were saying what we wanted to say,” Lovato said.
She added that though she didn’t necessarily like to be called “emo” at the time, the accompanying style and “aesthetics” made her feel “accepted.” “This was me also growing up in Dallas, Texas, as a bisexual, artistic, creative mind. I never felt like I fit in in the south.”
How Lovato would change her career
Lovato says that later she was “so excited to see emo music pop up in the mainstream world,” but she “was a little music snobbish,” adding that she felt “territorial” over some band she knew before they got big. “I remember specifically when Paramore started blowing up. I was like, ‘No! That’s my diary! I can’t share my diary with the world.’”
Freed asked Lovato if she could go back in time and started her career over as part of a band, what band would it be? “I think I wouldn’t join a band. I think I would start my own,” she said. However, she has another idea in mind: Blending genres. After hearing the music of singer Poppy, she said she thought, “This is what I would do if I could go back and redo my career…because it incorporated that rock side and that metal kind of feel.”
Written by: CheatSheet
