Lena Meyer-Landrut
Album as a “journey back to myself”
Lena Meyer-Landrut: “Self-doubt is part of who I am.”
© Marius Knieling
Lena Meyer-Landrut is releasing her new album “Loyal To Myself”. According to the singer, it stands for “a new-found attitude to life”.
Lena Meyer-Landrut (33) is celebrating the release of her sixth studio album: “Loyal to myself” will be released on May 31 and follows the album “Only Love, L” from 2019. “The album is successful for me if I am happy with it,” says the singer and songwriter in her video documentary about her new work. “And how many people hear it or how many streams it has or what position it gets in the charts is, strangely enough, irrelevant to me at this moment for the first time in my life.” The 2010 ESC winner makes it clear that “Loyal to myself” and the 17 songs go hand in hand with a personal development.
In the documentary, the singer describes the album as “a journey back to myself”. Its motto is: “More authentic. More with me. Back to myself. Less pressure. More fun.” This was preceded by a path full of self-doubt that is not over yet and which Meyer-Landrut describes as a “tightrope walk between ‘what am I really’ and ‘what am I for the wrong reasons'”. “I think I eventually reached a point where I felt that I was doing things as a means to an end. I don’t understand the world, I don’t understand the rules and yet I have to go with the flow.” Self-doubt and insecurities are always with her. “Do I have to change my music? The language? My appearance? There are thousands of thoughts where I am definitely not at a point where I can say: I am me and it’s OK like this.” She therefore tries out a lot, often drives herself crazy and “walks one step away from myself the whole time”.
She wishes for more serenity
But where do these doubts come from that “are part of her”? In the Radio Bremen talk show “3nach9” Lena Meyer-Landrut explained at the beginning of May: “People who are in the public eye are evaluated all the time. Not just evaluated, but also judged or condemned.” That is “good fertilizer for a self-esteem problem like that.” On social media, you get “a hundred comments, then one stupid comment, and then you spend the rest of the evening getting upset about it or thinking about it. I think you just have to get over it.” She is “on a very good path” to feeling more relaxed. “And I’ve become a bit braver, not wanting to please people quite so much anymore.”
The singer spoke in a “Spiegel” interview At the beginning of May, she also spoke openly about her experiences with depression and said that she had been “in therapy for several years.” “I have now learned tools to deal with the pressure. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always the case,” she explained in an interview with the magazine. When asked what she wished she had known ten years ago, the musician said: “That I have to take responsibility for myself and be allowed to set boundaries. I would have liked to have started doing that earlier. I’m not the Lena that belongs to everyone, even though many people think they know me. And I would have liked to have learned earlier that it’s okay not to be liked by everyone.”
In the title track of the album, she sings: “I’m loyal to myself now, I want to know myself. A little better now that I’m the real me. I’m loyal to myself because I have potential. I’ve improved, I need to be the real me.”
On tour with “Loyal to myself”
The new courage is also reflected in the fact that the musician had “thrown her entire album plan overboard”, as she in the video documentary “Making Loyal” tells. “I could have fought through something that I don’t feel 100 percent or that I don’t stand behind 100 percent. How am I supposed to be a constant when everything is in constant flux and I’m part of that flow? I can’t. I just didn’t manage it,” she explains tearfully. “I think that’s okay, I can’t always manage everything. I think I manage a lot, but not this time. I’m sincere and honest and that’s worth a lot. Who knows, maybe the next album will be different.”
Meyer-Landrut can now proudly present her album. She will be performing her new work live on stage in June and July. The Germany tour starts on June 1st in Leipzig and will take you to Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart, among others, until July 26th.