Emma Blackery – Singing Success & Social Media

Emma Blackery first started out on her journey to fame on Youtube which provided her with a platform on which to upload and share her songs with the rest of the world. With a growing fanbase she was then able to release hit after hit such as ‘Perfect’ and ‘Magnetised’.
In 2016 she was lucky enough to be invited as a guest star on Busted’s Pigs Can Fly tour which she claims was a great learning experience. “I remember the first night at Wembley Arena, a venue of 10 to 15000 people,” she reminisces.
“I was absolutely terrified, I was so nervous,” she admits. “The sound cut out 10 seconds in, I just kept singing. What better way to gain confidence in your show then have something screw up at a gig where people aren’t there for you – that was the hardest thing that I’ve had to do.”
Emma is all about trying your best to feel comfortable with who you are and learning from your mistakes. Recently social media has become a huge part of everyday life. We are living in a culture of Instagram and filtered photos. “Some people look at themselves and think, I’m not like this, I’ll never amount to anything, and that’s just not true,” says Emma.
She wrote songs like ‘Perfect’ to try to get this important message across. “I think [songs like this] could have really helped me, so when I wrote them, I thought, what would 13 year old me want to hear in a song and it’s helped a lot of people.”
“A few of my songs are about empowering young people, and I want to get them into this mindset because what’s the alternative?,” she claims. “There’s such a big culture of self-loathing and self-induced pressure in young people these days.” She should know, she says she felt it too.
“When it comes to feeling anxious and worrying about what people think of me, I haven’t completely overcome it myself,” she admits. “I’m 26 years old and I’m still learning every single day – I’m improving myself and there is no end goal to it.”
Her path to stardom started on social media, namely Youtube. Emma knows social media can be a very toxic place but we live in a culture of oversharing and it is something we have to learn to navigate.
To write her song ‘Dirt’ she took inspiration from a falling out she had with someone she knew. After the release of the song there was another public fallout. “I left social media for a few weeks, because it felt like all my words were being twisted by this one person. I was just so angry and frustrated and felt I couldn’t trust anyone anymore.”
The principle Emma Blackery tries to live by is to make the most of all situations and to always try your best: “If you try something, there is a chance you will fail. But if you don’t try something, then you’ve already failed at it.”
Emma Blackery’s first studio album “Villains” is set for release on 31 August.
> Naomi Round