- 2025-05-20
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MUSIC
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Joy Crookes Releases New Song “Carmen”
London-based singer-songwriter Joy Crookes released a new song “Carmen” along with a music video on May 16, 2025.
The song the forth single of 2025, following “I Know You'd Kill”, “Mathematics” featuring Kano, and “Pass the Salt” featuring Vince Staples.
Four songs will appear on her upcoming sophomore album.
The track is about society’s standards of beauty, which are anti-feminist and rooted deeply in the male gaze.
It was written by Jonny Lattimer, Amy Langley, Bernie J.P. Taupin, Elton John, and Joy Crookes. Produced by Joy Crookes and Blue May.
The video was directed by Alice Fassi.
Joy Crookes said of the song, “I wrote this song after a bunch of my mates were all losing their shit over this one particular girl and when I met her I was a bit confused. That’s not to say that she wasn’t lovely and fit but I just found it to be a sad moment of reflection and that as a woman, particularly in my experience of being a brown woman, I felt as though I had to work harder to have the same recognition she so easily achieved.”- She continued, “It became a song that ended up commenting on society’s standard of beauty, which is naturally pretty anti feminist and lives deeply in the male gaze. Instead of “bitching” about “Carmen” I decided to write a song of adoration to her, wondering how someday I might get to become as adored as she is by merely existing.”
She added, “This is for the women that I really admire and care about who have been diminished because of the way they look or the way their brains work or the fact that they actually have an opinion on something and aren’t just designed within the parameters of the 'male gaze'” - source : Apple Music
