Samia Releases Liz Phair cover and reveals her top 5 female songwriters from the 1990s
Brooklyn based artist Samia released her debut EP Ode to Artifice back in August and has drawn critical praise for her rock/blues/soul inflected pop. In the lead up to the release of her debut album, Samia had just released a cover of Liz Phair’s classic song ‘Never Said’. Samia has been a massive fan of Phair since she was a teenager and says about recording the song:“ The original version of this song is obviously untouchable so I wanted to try something completely different. You can probably hear her influence in my voice and songwriting so it would’ve been impossible to record an entirely new version of it, but we slowed that fucker down! Was a real honor to sing this song.”
Samia is joined on the recording by Raffaella on vocals, along with her close friend Quinn McGovern who also produced the track. Samia also created a DIY video for the single with her friends, the actors Lucas Hedges and Fred Hechinger, along with editor Nick D’Agostino. She says of creating the video: “I was hanging out with Fred and Lucas last month and we were filming ourselves doing ridiculous characters. I played them the ‘Never Said’ cover and this sort of just happened. We sent it over to Nick who sprinkled magic on it and voila!”
To celebrate the release of ‘Never Said’, Samia has shared with Women In Pop her top 5 female singer-songwriters from the 1990s.
Samia’s five female songwriters of the 90s
Liz Phair - Had the distinct privilege of meeting John Mellencamp when I was 14 and played him a few of my songs. He goes, ‘Liz Phair. You’re gonna be like Liz Phair.’ Listened to her music pretty exclusively for a few years after that. Haven’t had such a visceral and lasting reaction to anyone’s music since.
Tori Amos - Tori is prolific and enigmatic as hell and I have deeply admired/basically prayed to her as a divine higher power since my dad showed me the ‘Silent All These Years’ music video at 10 years old. That song is chock-full of zingers. Right away she hits us with, "Excuse me, but can I be you for a while?" and then whips out "BOY YOU BETTER PRAY I BLEED REAL SOON" are you kidding??? I fucking love you, Tori, you freaky lioness angel.
Missy Elliot - Missy changed everything. She entered the scene like ‘ready or not here I come’ and was the highest charting female rapper when Supa Dupa Fly came out. She has always been ostensibly fearless in expressing herself and her feminism. Used to watch her music videos with my mouth hanging open like ‘how did she come up with that?’ So multi-talented and lyrically brilliant.
Alanis Morrisette - listened to Alanis more than any other artist growing up. She was my mom's favorite. I remember driving up Mulholland to school in my mom's 69 Mustang convertible screaming ‘You Oughta Know’. Was (maybe obviously) so inspired by the unapologetic anger.
Fiona Apple - all i have to say about Fiona is that she wrote “I looked like a neon zebra shaking rain off her stripes / And the rivulets had you riveted to the places that I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone” That is the most visceral imagery; I can fully relate without having seen or been a neon zebra. I know she didn’t write that in the 90’s but I needed to talk about it. ‘Criminal’ is the sexiest music video of all time.
Samia - Tour Dates
7 October - Grand Rapids, MI - The Stache
9 October - Buffalo, NY - The Rec Room
11 October - Holyoke, MA - Gateway City Arts
12 October - Burlington, VT - Higher Ground
13 October - Portsmouth, NH - Press Room
15 October - Amityville, NY - Amityville Music Hall
16 October - Asbury Park, NJ - House of Independents
17 October - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
18 October - Pittsburgh, PA - Spirit
14 November - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren
15 November - San Diego, CA - North Park Theatre
16 November - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
17 November - San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theater
18 November - Sacramento, CA - Ace of Spades
20 November - San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
22 November - Santa Cruz, CA - The Catalyst
‘Never Said’ is out now and you can dowloadn it on iTunes and stream on Apple Music and Spotify
To keep up with all thing Samia, you can follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
