We caught up with Alt-Pop artist Sarah Michelle following the release of her latest single PDA. We wanted to find out more about what inspires her unique sound. Check out her hand picked tracks below and don't forget to listen to PDA at the end of the article!
1. Cherry Wine - Hozier
"This is my absolute favorite song of all time. In every area of my music it inspires me- for one as a guitarist It’s such a fun song to play, the guitar part that Hozier wrote is absolutely beautiful. It’s the first song I’ll play to show off my guitar skills or to test out a new guitar, it’s kinda my go to. The lyrics as well are out of this world. The line “Her fight and fury is fiery, oh but she loves like sleep to the freezing” is my favorite lyric I’ve ever heard, I could talk about how genius it is for HOURS. Every time I write a song I hope to write something even half as beautiful and poetic as that one."
2. Love Again - Dua Lipa
"This song was actually introduced to me through the show Song Exploder. There’s an episode where Dua Lipa is interviewed and it takes you through the whole songwriting and producing process and it just sparked something in me. Every layer in the instrumental just adds so much, I love songs where I can hear something new every time I listen to it. The way you can hear the smile in her voice in parts of the vocal is so cool too, she gives such an amazing performance just through her voice."
3. Underground - Cody Fry
"I’m a sucker for anything orchestral. This song just gives me such a rush every time I listen to it. I listened to it once while the plane I was in was landing and it was such a magical experience. This song really influenced my production on my song Little Moon, I love how it combines the acoustic guitar with an orchestra that sounds almost out of a fantasy movie."
4. Smoking Out the Window - Silk Sonic
"I’m a HUGE Silk Sonic fan and this song is my favorite of theirs. My roots as a musician are in jazz music, I’ve been studying jazz guitar for years. This song isn’t strictly jazz but it has that kind of modern pop-jazz hybrid feel to it, which makes me drawn to it. I was in a songwriting competition earlier this year where you had to take a section of a song that was currently on the Billboard Hot 100 and rewrite it from a different perspective, and I chose to rewrite the pre-chorus and chorus of Smoking Out the Window. It really pushed me out of my comfort zone creatively, because while I play a lot of songs that lean towards jazz and R&B, the music I write is mostly indie-folk and singer songwriter. It was a really cool exercise and I think about songwriting in a whole different way now- I also love the idea of doing a co-write with Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak. It was fun to live in that fantasy for a little bit!! "
5. Happier Than Ever - Billie Eilish
"Billie Eilish is my favorite artist of all time. Finding her music was such a turning point in my life, she’s inspired me as an artist before I even started writing music. I was in such a dark place when I found her and she was the person who made me start to love music again. I love this song in particular because it starts as the more indie, jazz, softer sound and then flips completely on its head halfway through. And I feel like that sums up who I am as an artist. I write what I feel, and a lot of time that translates into my softer, guitar based music- but sometimes I write more intense, angry songs like PDA. That’s one of the things I love about Billie, her music has such a range and there’s a song of hers that I can listen to for any mood that I’m in."
Listen to Sarah Michelle 'PDA'