Rumer is an untypical voice who went through a typical music industry story, elevated quickly to the top and then pushed beyond her limits. Yet she played the right card at the right time, following up her phenomenal debut with a successful covers album. She encountered some resistance to that but stuck to her guns, and survived the record industry mangle machine. A perfect winter’s tale with the soundtrack to go with…
Rumer is a very untypical voice. Often compared with Karen Carpenter (we can’t help it with these comparisons in the music world, but in this case you can hear why), when Rumer first came across the radio waves in the summer of 2010 with the single Slow, the impact was clear. Here was an anachronism, an antidote to the deluge of pop going on at the time (from Bruno Mars to Olly Murs, Lady Gaga to Katy Perry, hits where all pop back then).
Rumer’s arrival struck a similar chord to that of Norah Jones some six years earlier i.e. refreshingly out of time. Those singles Slow, Aretha and their host album Seasons of My Soul arrived so fully formed and Rumer was another case of ‘overnight success 10 years in the making’.
“It was planes, trains and automobiles, that was my journey to getting a record deal and in those days you had to have a record deal. I couldn’t imagine doing a self-release – I didn’t have the knowhow, team or energy. But getting a record deal seemed to be as likely as winning the lottery. I was just a girl working three jobs and trying to survive”.
This went on for years and years – almost a decade – of doing low-key circuits, song-writing between jobs and with very little hope of ever getting a music career off the ground - even with that voice. After all, we don’t live in a world where talent rises naturally to the top.
Then all of a sudden, at the last roll of the dice, everything happened all at once. Signed by Atlantic Records, Rumer was thrust atop a pedestal - signing dinners, showcases, chart success, radio play, then mixing with pop royalty and even invitations to the White House. What followed was an all too familiar tale, a most typical music industry story. Rumer became an exemplar of everything the music industry machine can do. As she puts it on The Art of Longevity:
“I was like a rabbit in the headlights, just spinning. I didn’t really enjoy it but I was shaming myself for not enjoying it because it was what I had wanted”. Everything goes so fast, you can’t think – you need other people to think for you – and at that point you become vulnerable. Your energy, magic and sparkle is drained from you”.
“It’s the nature of the beast that if you're an artist, you have a propensity for being vulnerable. The record industry is a trigger - once you step into the industry it’s like a clock starts ticking, you wonder how long have I got before I self-destruct”.
Yet perhaps, she played the right card at the right time. To follow-up her phenomenal debut Rumer released a covers album Boys Don’t Cry, in 2014. She encountered some resistance to that, but stuck to her guns and got her way. That album was also a major success. One of the secrets to longevity we’ve discovered on The Art of Longevity is to “have the confidence to disrupt yourself before the industry disrupts you”. Rumer did just that and survived to tell the tale.
“It was the first thing I did when I was trying to interpret, which I took later into my other projects Sings Bacharach and Nashville Tears”.
They are such meticulous creations, true slow-burn records that can have the effect of warming the heart and re-tuning your ears. Interpretation (i.e. much more than cover versions) is something Rumer does very well, diving deep into projects and truly occupying the songs of others – often unusual off the grid choices. It’s something that many established artists have gone on to do as well, notably Bruce Springsteen on his last album Only The Strong Survive.
Having rode the roller coaster, and now working on new original material after such a long time, how does Rumer evaluate her relationship with the music industry now?
“I’m open to new relationships in terms of the music industry but I’m more than capable of going alone. I’m not an anti-major label, I’m grateful for the opportunities that came my way, but I’m glad that I survived it”. The balls in my court, I have got to come up with the music - and the music will show me the way - how best to put it out”.
Amen to that and let’s look forward to Rumer’s next project. Whatever she comes up with next, it will be immersive, classic pop music - the kind we can take comfort in and escape to.
Having made her own escape, it’ll come from a place of experience as well.