Emma Blackery

Lisa Hafey, praising "Third Eyes "upbeat disco sound" and "nice ABBA-y vibe", called Villains "a bit of a feminist album". In June Blackery performed "Third Eye" live at the 9th VidCon Night of Awesome. Blackery then partnered with HMV for a UK tour. Villains spent one week on the UK Albums Chart at number 24 and number 18 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart. Thomas Smith noted in an NME blog how Apple events helped Sofi Tukker, Emma Blackery, and Odesza in their careers.

Emma Louise Blackery (born 11 November 1991) is an English musician, singer, YouTube vlogger, record producer, and author.

Active since 2012, Blackery has released EPs, singles, and Vevo music videos.

Blackery released her debut EP, Human Behaviour, in early 2012 followed by her second EP, Distance, in July 2013.

A music video for the lead track, "Go the Distance," was produced by Arthur Walwin.

Blackery's book, Feel Good 101: The Outsiders' Guide to a Happier Life, is based on her 2013 Feel Good 101 video series.

Blackery grew up in Basildon, Essex, finished sixth form at Bromfords School in Wickford, Blackery worked as a waitress before beginning her career as a musician and YouTuber.

Her third EP, Perfect, was released on 11 November 2014.

Its title track topped the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart for one week, and entered the UK Rock & Metal Singles Chart at number eight.

In 2015, Blackery's main YouTube channel had over one million subscribers.

She performed and was a panelist at YouTube events (including Summer in the City and VidCon), and has contributed twice to the YouTube Rewind video series.

In 2015, Elle included Blackery on its "30 Women Under 30 Who Are Changing the World" list.

Jason Perry produced Blackery's fourth EP, Sucks to Be You, which was released in 2016.

Its title track peaked at number 85 on the Scottish Singles Chart.

On 4 April 2016, Blackery announced that she would join pop punk band Busted on their Pigs Can Fly tour.

"Sucks to Be You" was the runner-up for the first Summer in the City Song of the Year award.

After touring with Busted, Blackery toured on her own and performed her music at other YouTube events.

She released her fifth EP, Magnetised, on 26 May 2017.

It spent one week on the UK Albums Chart at number 63, and peaked at number five on the UK Independent Albums Chart and number two on the Official Independent Album Breakers Chart.

On 6 August, Blackery received a Summer in the City Song of the Year award for "Nothing Without You".

The cover art for Magnetised was featured at the Apple Keynote event for the iPhone X in September 2017.

She has toured with Busted, and headlined tours for her debut studio album Villains, released on her RWG Records label in 2018.

Blackery founded her independent record label, RWG Records, in 2018 and began work on her debut studio album Villains.

She has explained that releasing on her own label gives her "control over a lot more aspects of [her] music career."

On 16 March 2018, she released the lead single "Dirt", produced by Toby Scott.

The song, on Spotify's New Music Friday UK playlist, was described by Record of the Day as a "slick combination of Scandi-pop" and "sassy American pop"; Blackery described "Dirt" as "best served cold".

On 3 May 2018 she released her second single "Agenda" along with a lyric video.

On 22 May 2018 she released the music video for "Agenda" followed by a lyric video for "Icarus" and a music video for "Take Me Out".

Blackery shared that during the album's creation, she learned more about production and the artistic direction she wanted to go in.

She explained, "It was really during the album writing process that [she] learned how to create music outside of basic chords on a guitar - [she] ended up producing a large amount of the finished product that [her] fans heard and only learned after it was released that sometimes you sadly have to fight for credit on your own work."

In retrospect, she also admits she would revisit the choruses on "Fake Friends" and "Take Me Out," saying she wouldn't make them as "simplistic" if she made the songs more recently.

Blackery released Villains, on 31 August 2018.

The album contains songs written in collaboration with Toby Scott, Maxwell Cooke, and Peter Hutchings.

BroadwayWorld noted that "Petty" "flirts with tropical house", and the Express & Star cited elements of power pop.

The European Villains Tour, planned for March 2018, was postponed until October.

London based singer-songwriter Lilly Ahlberg was the tour's special guest.

The three-week tour began at Oslo's Parkteatret on 4 October, followed by performances in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Sugarfactory (Amsterdam), Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Academy 2 (Manchester), O2 Institute2 (Birmingham), The Garage (Glasgow), and Tramshed (Cardiff) before ending at KOKO in London on 25 October.

A Never Enough Notes reviewer at KOKO saw "angst, passion, and energy in every word" and wrote that Blackery has "a knack for live shows; full of attitude, high energy and a phenomenal vocal performance".

Blackery released "Cute Without You", produced with Toby Scott, in April 2019.

In July 2019, she performed at the Evoke festival in Brentwood and for BBC Radio 5 Live, where Nihal Arthanayake interviewed her for his Headliners series.