On ‘LA’s Killing Our Girls’, Amelie Roden asks who benefits when women and girls feel pressure to make themselves thinner. The single came out on 6th November. Amelie draws on her own experiences with body image to look beyond the individual and question where the pressure comes from.
She places the return of the ‘skinny’ ideal in the context of celebrity culture and public conversations about weight loss. The song examines how often women are invited to compare their bodies with one another, while companies sell products and procedures as answers to the insecurity those comparisons encourage.
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Amelie’s response is a call for solidarity. In her account of the song, women deserve affection, recognition and success without having to change their appearance to earn them. She also questions why other women are so often presented as rivals when they face many of the same pressures.
Amelie wrote, produced and mixed the single herself, with mastering by Fuji Hideout. The arrangement combines electronic synths and country-style vocals within indie pop. It continues her move into making her own recordings, a process she has taken on to get closer to the sound she hears while writing.
The new subject also connects with ‘megan’, another song Amelie produced and mixed. There, she imagined a daughter who would fit more comfortably into her family’s expectations. Where ‘megan’ asks what it costs to measure yourself against an imagined version of who you ought to be, ‘LA’s Killing Our Girls’ takes the question outside the family and into celebrity culture.
Amelie began writing songs at seven and names Gracie Abrams, Taylor Swift and Lizzy McAlpine among her influences. Earlier releases include ‘One More Lie’, which follows a narrator working through manipulation and the decision to leave a relationship. Here, Amelie directs those questions about control and self-worth towards a beauty standard shared far beyond any one relationship.
Amelie played her first headline show at The Grace in London and has supported Chloe Slater and Maya Lane. BBC Introducing in Kent chose ‘collecting dust’ as its Record of the Week. Its music video won Best Music Video at the LA Femme Film Festival and the Paris Short Film Festival.
Find Amelie’s music on Spotify and follow her on Instagram.
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