Nea releases new album "Transparent"

Nea, born Anna Linnea Södahl, knows how to tell a story. As one of Sweden’s most prolific pop songwriters, Nea has penned hits for notable names including Zara Larsson, Tinie Tempah, Twice, and Axwell. But her own story had yet to be written and so in 2019, Nea stepped out on her own with her debut solo single “Some Say,” an anthem of unrequited love that later appeared on a 2020 EP of the same name. The track and its Felix Jaehn remix, was the ninth most played song on European radio in 2019, topping charts in over 20 countries and garnering almost a billion streams across all DSPs.

“Some Say” was the beginning of Nea digging deeper into her own truth, a process which produced Transparent, 9 songs that reflect Nea’s commitment to speaking from the heart. “When I write for other artists, I am always searching for their story,” she says. “Here, I had to ask myself the same questions: What is my story, what do I want to say?” She found a creative partner in producer Daniel Ledinsky (Carly Rae Jepsen, The Vaccines, Tove Lo) and together they built a sonic world that includes pop, rock, and even a little bit of folk music. “There are many songs on this album that are too personal to ever give away to another artist,” Nea says and indeed, it’s difficult to imagine “Take It As a Man” belonging to anyone else. An intensely personal song about abuse that asks “If nobody sees what’s going on/I wonder did it even happen?,” “Take It As a Man” chooses to process this pain through groovy pop production. “I wanted to write this song and lyrics in a way that it feels happy and carefree if you just hear the production and melodies, but if you listen closely to the words there’s another layer to it,” Nea explains. The only track on the record where Nea is credited as the sole songwriter, “Take It As a Man” underlines the urgency beneath Nea sharing her own stories.

Much of Transparent is informed by the modes of love that shape Nea’s life, from romance to friendship to self-empowerment. As far as romance is concerned, Nea leans into the roller coaster highs and lows. On lead single “Sweet Crash,” a duet with Declan J. Donovan, a British singer whose earnest, emotionally-apt songs have been streamed over 600 million times, she likens that captures “two people colliding in the sweetest, hottest, sexiest, loveliest way ever.” She indulges her inner drama queen on the deliriously upbeat “Cold Turkey”, playfully exaggerating feelings of romantic jealousy. Elsewhere, the lovely “Imagine” celebrates a stability found with a current partner after years of strike-outs: “If that’s how much I could love the wrong ones/Imagine how I’m gonna love you.”

A recurring theme on Transparent is the tension between relationships and Nea’s devotion to her career. “It’s not easy for people to understand my lifestyle, especially if they don’t have the same passion for something,” Nea says, noting that her passion for music is its own romantic relationship. “They love it when I’m successful as long as I’m not too successful, and not more successful than them,” she says. “A career-driven woman isn’t easy for people to take.”

Nea celebrates that same complexity on “A Lover Like Me”. “Daniel and I wrote that song very quickly based around the concept of being unsatisfied with the selection of lovers out there—why can’t they behave the way I do,” Nea explains. “We wanted to push that idea as far as we could.” Atop the song’s simple, two-chord structure colored by bombastic live horns, Nea channels a cheeky sass: “Imagine how happy we could be/If it was only me and me.” “YES” channels a similar celebratory energy as Nea embraces the adrenaline rush of openness. “I find it so terrifying to not live my life to the fullest, sometimes it’s almost a bad thing because I want to do everything, I overwork and over-perfect,” she says. “But I just want to catch every ounce of life I’ve been given.”

At the end of the day, life is best lived alongside others and some of Transparent’s most touching moments are odes to friendships past and present. The downcast “Losing a Friend” explores the grief that accompanies the dissolution of a friendship. “I’ve written hundreds, maybe thousands, of songs about romantic love, but when I had a falling out with one of my best friends, I realized there are so many angles of love that are not spoken about as much,” she says. “The heartbreak of a friendship ending is just as real.” The depth of the pain within “Losing a Friend” makes the opening track “Chosen Family” all the more poignant: “Don’t take it for granted/And know you should hear it more/So I just wanna say thank you.” These words, delivered with a tenderness atop lush, rhapsodic production, cut to the core of Transparent and underline Nea’s commitment to opening her heart and sharing it with the world.