It’s a new era for Clairo. The singer-songwriter, a.k.a. Claire Cottrill, has signed with Atlantic Records.
“I’m so thrilled to begin this next chapter of my musical journey with Atlantic,” Cottrill said in a statement. “From our first meeting, they immediately understood my vision, and it feels good to know I can continue to be as expressive and free with my ideas with a great new partner by my side.”
The signing news arrives a little over a year after Cottrill released the excellent Charm, which earned her a Grammy nomination — her first, for Best Alternative Music Album — and hundreds of millions of streams for singles “Juna” and “Sexy to Someone.” That album was self-released, following her 2017 debut, Immunity (released through the Fader label), and 2021’s Sling (released through Fader and Republic Records). “This is my third album, and people know me a little bit better, but fuck, they still don’t know,” she told RS at the time. “It takes so many records to really understand someone’s choices.”
Clairo kicked off her career in 2017 with her glittery bedroom-pop song “Pretty Girl,” which went viral on YouTube, while she was still a student at Syracuse University. Major labels came calling right away, but she signed with the independent Fader instead. Even so, some online commenters at the time targeted her with “industry plant” accusations, because her father, a marketing executive, was friendly with the label’s founder, Jon Cohen.
“I’m nervous to talk about it, because I want to make sure I say this right,” she told us in her 2021 Rolling Stone cover story. “I signed with Fader because I’ve known Jon Cohen my whole life. There was a sense of accountability and protection. I definitely am not blind to the fact that things have been easier for me than other people’s experiences. It would be stupid of me to not acknowledge the privilege I had from the start to be able to sign somewhere where there’s trust, to be able to sign a record deal that doesn’t revolve around keeping myself afloat financially.”
She continued: “So I fully recognize that, but I would be stupid to not use that relationship in a moment where I was really scared and really confused. I would be stupid to not want that guidance from somebody that my family trusts. People just think what they want to think and I can’t stop that, but I am getting better at explaining it for what it is.”
Now, she’s embarking on a new phase, and hopefully there’s new music to come, too. In the meantime, Clairo is slated to perform at All Things Go festival, stopping in Washington, D.C. (Sept. 27) and Queens, New York (Sept. 28).
