Emerging alt-pop artist Dailla delivers ‘lalalove me’, a 2:33 track built on emotional compression and immediacy.
Driven by a real-time industry clash, the record translates raw reaction into controlled structure—balancing exposed vocals, looping guitar, and rough-cut drums.
The video extends that tension, staging inner conflict through exaggerated personas and the pressure to “choose” an identity, produced in collaboration with Native Films.
In this FM PRO 10Q, Dailla breaks down the moment it locked in and how instinct, psychology, and multi-instrument control shaped the final form.
Vulnerability doesn’t mean weakness, and resistance doesn’t mean shutting down. In the song, vulnerability is in the question – “will you love me when I’m me?”…
What was the exact moment or experience that pushed ‘lalalove me’ from frustration into a finished track?
Thank you for having me!
It was very immediate. I had just come back from a meeting with an agency that was supposed to help me find my way and grow as an artist, but instead I felt judged and pushed to change who I am.
I came home, picked up my diary and my guitar, and the main riff just came naturally. It wasn’t planned – I just needed to get everything out of my system, everything that felt wrong, negative, and not really mine.
In that moment, I knew it would become a new song. Of course, finishing the final version took more time, but the whole creative journey was worth it. That’s when it shifted from frustration into something empowering. I realized I could take back control of my own story – and that’s when it became a finished track.
The song comes from being judged without being understood. How did you translate that anger into something structured and listenable?
For me, structure comes from emotion, not the other way around. The feeling was very raw, honest, and unfiltered, and I tried to stay true to that – just shaping it a little so people can follow it. The anger in “lalalove me” isn’t chaos – it has a flow. It moves from confusion, to frustration, and towards the end, into a kind of acceptance.
And musically, repetition helps – like the riff or certain vocal parts – it holds everything together, so it feels natural, even though the emotion is very exposed and real.
How did you approach writing from a place of both vulnerability and resistance without one diluting the other?
I didn’t try to soften either of them. Both vulnerability and resistance are there in their raw form – very honest and unfiltered. I wanted to keep those feelings exactly as they were. Vulnerability doesn’t mean weakness, and resistance doesn’t mean shutting down. In the song, vulnerability is in the question – “will you love me when I’m me?” – and resistance is in the decision that follows choosing yourself anyway. I let both exist fully, because in real life they always do. That tension is actually the point.
At 2:33, the track moves fast. How did you structure it to hit hard without overextending the idea?
I like songs that feel like a moment you can’t stretch too far – because it would lose its honesty. With “lalalove me,” once the message lands, there’s no need to repeat it ten more times.
So, the pacing is intentional: it builds quickly, reaches the emotional peak, and then lets go. I’d rather leave a bit of tension in the air than over-explain it.
Some people told me it feels like it ends openly – and that’s actually the point. There’s space for it to continue, especially in live shows.
You play multiple instruments. How does that control shape the emotional direction of your songs compared to working with others?
Playing multiple instruments gives me a direct connection to the emotion. It also gives me a lot of freedom – I can just pick up a guitar, sit down at the piano, and if I have something in my head, I can immediately play it. When I feel something, I can translate it straight into a sound – into a guitar tone, a piano part, or even the rhythm. It makes the whole process very intuitive.
At the same time, I really need a creative partner. Collaboration helps me a lot – it’s a shared process where we support each other and push each other forward. That mutual exchange, and sometimes that extra push, are important. Other people bring perspectives I wouldn’t come up with on my own.
But having that foundation in my hands means the core emotion of the song still stays very personal and intentional.
Your background in psychology feeds into your writing. How consciously do you apply that when building lyrics and themes?
It’s both conscious and unconscious. I don’t sit down thinking, “I’m going to apply this theory now,” but I’m very aware of emotional patterns – contradictions, defence mechanisms, and the ways people cope.
Songs like Running Wild or Twisted Heart are built on those inner conflicts – wanting to leave but also wanting to stay or feeling lost and still searching for meaning.
Psychology just gives me language and understanding for things I already feel.
The track pushes against industry expectations. How do you decide what feedback to take seriously and what to reject?
I think not every opinion deserves to shape you. That’s something I’ve really learned. If feedback helps me express myself better, I’ll take it. But if it tries to change who I am at the core, I let it go.
In that meeting, the first thing I felt was a shock – when someone tells you you’re not interesting enough and that maybe you would be if you dyed your hair red or shaved it… wow, that was intense. In that moment, a thought immediately hits you: you’re not good enough the way you are. But at the same time, you realize there are boundaries you just won’t cross – because that’s not you. And that’s when it became clear to me: this isn’t feedback, this is projection. And I don’t want to build my identity on that.
The video splits you into four versions of yourself. When did that concept click, and how closely does it reflect your real internal dialogue?
It actually started from the feeling that everyone always had a different idea of who I should be.
There was the “proper” sweet girl – Barbie Dailla – the polished, perfect, bossy woman, then the more emotional, impulsive version of me with red hair, and then just Dailla as herself. I wanted to turn all those expectations into actual characters and show what it would look like if they all had to exist in one room together.
That’s where the job interview idea came from.
I liked the irony of these different sides of me almost competing with each other, as if they each had to justify why they deserve to exist and why they should be the one that stays. But during the process, I realized none of them are fully invented – I genuinely carry a bit of each one in me. The softness, the ambition, the control, the chaos, the emotion.
So, the video became very close to my real internal dialogue. It’s not about choosing one fixed version of myself – it’s about acknowledging that personality can be layered, and that different sides of you can exist at once. At the same time, it pushes back against the idea that other people get to define who you are based on just one version they want to see. I wanted to show these sides of me as characters, while making it clear that no one else gets to decide which one is the “right” one. People will always project their own expectations onto you, but at the end of the day, only you get to define who you are.
Each “version” of you represents a different response to pressure. Do you see one as dominant, or is the tension the point?
The tension is the point. I don’t think one version “wins.” It’s more about learning to understand all of them and not letting just one take over completely.
That balance – or sometimes even imbalance – is what makes us human.
There’s also a bit of exaggeration in the video, but that’s intentional – it shows how absurd it is to feel like you have to choose who you’re supposed to be, instead of just being yourself.
The track leans on a droning guitar motif, rougher drums, and exposed vocals. How did you design the arrangement and mix to keep that raw intensity without losing clarity?
The guitar motif creates that constant pressure underneath everything, while the drums give it a kind of physical energy. The vocals are intentionally very exposed and emotional, because that’s where the truth is. The key is contrast – keeping the instrumental powerful but leaving enough space so the voice can cut through.
I’m really inspired by that balance between cinematic sound and raw honesty – something that feels big, but still very personal.
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