Blondshell announces new album ‘If You Asked For A Picture’ and shares new single ‘T&A’

Blondshell has announced a new album ‘If You Asked For A Picture’ and has shared the single ‘T&A’ – listen below.

• READ MORE: Live Through This: Blondshell’s fearless debut is one of 2023’s finest

The Los Angeles-based artist – real name Sabrina Teitelbaum – will release the new record on May 2 via Partisan, and you can pre-order it here. It sees the former NME Cover star returning to the studio with producer Yves Rothman and it has already been previewed by the 2024 single ‘What’s Fair’.

Now, she has shared the latest single ‘T&A’, complete with a video directed by Hannah Bon. The languid, ‘90s alt-rock pacing matches Teitelbaum’s confessional lyrical style, with the track building to a rousing chorus. Watch here:

Speaking about the song, Teitelbaum has said: “There’s a Rolling Stones song on ‘Tattoo You’ called ‘Little T&A’ and at one point in the song, he says ‘tits and ass’, so I’m borrowing that.”

“I think in music, it’s easy to see things as either more sexualized or more romantic, and I wanted this to be both. I see it as a love story – maybe not the most fairy tale love story – but I wanted it to feel like a really narrative song, where one thing leads to another and then you end up somewhere you didn’t expect. Normally that’s not how I write, but I wanted a song like that.”

Announcing the record amid the shocking events of the Los Angeles wildfires in her home city, Teitelbaum has taken the time to express her sorrow for those affected by the disaster: “It feels impossible to think of anything other than the fires in Los Angeles right now. The city I’ve lived in for ten years is burning and the scale of the loss is incomprehensible.”

“In a way it feels dumb to talk about music, but I also think the whole point of art is for it to exist in the context of pain as a small emotional respite… even if just for one moment. Please stay safe. Thank you for letting me share this with you. 12 songs about searching for love, family and friendship in many right and wrong places.”

She also shared the following links to places to donate:

Mutual Aid LA: https://mutualaidla.org

LA Fire Department fundraiser: https://supportlafd.org/

Dog fostering signup sheet: https://www.caninerescue.club/foster

The title of ‘If You Asked For A Picture’ is borrowed from a line in the 1986 poem Dogfish by Mary Oliver. “There’s a part of the poem that says: ‘I don’t need to tell you everything I’ve been through. It’s just another story of somebody trying to survive,’” Teitelbaum has explained.

“Something I love about songs is that you’re showing a snapshot of a person or a relationship, and showing a glimpse into a story can be just as important as trying to capture the entire thing. Sometimes it’s even truer to the entire picture than if you tried to write everything down.”

‘If You Asked For A Picture’ tracklist: 

1. ‘Thumbtack’ 
2. ‘T&A’ 
3. ‘Arms’ 
4. ‘What’s Fair’ 
5. ‘Two Times’ 
6. ‘Event Of A Fire’ 
7. ‘23’s A Baby’ 
8. ‘Change’ 
9. ‘Toy’ 
10. ‘He Wants Me’ 
11. ‘Man’ 
12. ‘Model Rockets’ 

Blondshell’s 2023 self-titled debut album received five stars from NME, who noted: “‘Blondshell’, then, is a complete triumph in several ways. Rarely do emerging artists receive the benefit of the doubt to change tack, recalibrate their sound and allow their lived experiences to develop and find their way into the music. Too often is that creator pigeonholed or, worse, written off – and such could have been the case for Teitelbaum. Instead, we have one of the alternative rock albums of the year, and one to treasure tightly for quite some time.”

Since then, she has released the single ‘Docket’ alongside Bully, which NME recently named as one of the best songs of 2024.