Anna Shoemaker is many things: a proud cat owner, a SoundCloud sensation, “Brooklyn's own Olivia Rodrigo”—the list goes on. In the seven or so years she’s been signed to 5Towns Records, the singer has carved out a “crying in the club”–girl image—relatable and deeply unapologetic, she’s the kind of artist whose lyrics feel like a page from your diary. Her discography is nothing if not brutally honest, a conglomerate of songs on self doubt, young adulthood, and of course, heartbreak. But in the couple years since her debut album Everything is Fine (I’m Only on Fire), the (temporarily) Los Angeles–based pop confessionalist has uncovered another aspect to her accomplished identity—it only took her a couple thousand miles to get there.
In fall 2023 Shoemaker found herself on the road with friend and Portland musician Aidan Bissett for his United States tour Supernova: How’s it Going to End? Not too long before then, Anna had started a project of her own: the infancy of what is now her second studio album Someone Should Stop Her, set to be released in February of next year. While journeying the open road, far, far from the New York City spheres she’d established, Shoemaker felt strangely … free. And, by the time the tour was over, the singer was “stagnant”—something about returning to metropolis just didn't feel quite right yet.
“I felt so good being away from New York. I felt so good being away from this place that I felt like I should be—this place that I'd been telling myself like, ‘Oh, you're happy here. This is your home. Like, you're supposed to be doing this. This is what you should be doing.’”
And the feeling caught her by surprise. Shoemaker was startled by her euphoria, especially since her whole world was back in the city. “You shouldn't feel better living out of your car on tour than you should in your own apartment,” she remarks. But the proof was in the pudding: The open road called out enticingly to the singer, and when push came to shove, she was staying right where it felt right.
The dimly lit basement venue at World Cafe Live is where the artist has found herself now. I have found myself in the audience. Shoemaker’s return to Philly is a homecoming of sorts, marking the 22nd show of her Go to Heaven! tour and occurring just one day after the release of her single “Game of Thrones” alongside the announcement for her sophomore album. It’s an intimate space, and the walls are awash with hues of pink and purple, casting long shadows over the audience, the stage, and Anna herself, who, eager and towering before the crowd, is grinning ear to ear. Right away, it’s clear the singer has a genuine appetite for performance. This particular venue, she says, is especially sentimental. “Honestly, like, performing anywhere always feels like a dream. … I just love playing shows, and I love getting to do that,” she confesses. “But I mean, performing in Philly is definitely special.” In her younger years, Anna interned at WXPN and would envision herself performing on the same stage she stands on now. “I was like, okay, like, I want to do that. I think I can do that. That's just, like, everything to me.”
Her opening song is “Fields,” the second track off her upcoming release, and the acoustic anthem for her newfound perspective. Strumming her guitar, Shoemaker croons, “I don’t know why it feels so good / Being so damn far from where I should be.” Her lyrics are telling. And the powerful backing of real instruments only adds to the weight of her words. It’s her first time ever playing with this band live—with a full band at all since the beginning of the year, for that matter—but you wouldn't guess it’s a new arrangement. The way the singer exchanges knowing glances with her guitarist and demands an encore of applause from the audience on behalf of her bandmates, you’d think Shoemaker and the group go way back.
The sound of real instruments fills the room with a lively hum—a complement to her subsequent tracks “It’s Depression” and “Hey Anna,” which are equally intense. Shoemaker belts the latter’s chorus with ferocious conviction: “If I hold my breath I’d end up dead / So I let you let me down instead”—it’s easy to picture her singing to some figure across the room, as if the unlucky soul on the receiving end of her address was caught in the dim, shifting lights on the opposite balcony.
The musicians behind her are stellar. The raw instrumentation serves to accentuate the authority of Anna’s voice, needing nothing but conventional sound: the steady pound of drums, the low thrum of bass. The lack of bells and whistles is a deliberate effort to reimagine Anna’s older material in light of her newfound sound—the former of which differs considerably from the harmonies she’d sketched while on the road. Besides her sense of self, Shoemaker also transformed her sonic identity. This process, she says, began with the overnight writing of her currently unreleased “Back Again”—a raw, simplistic north star for the album she’d penned after months on tour. The song’s guitar–forward, free–spirited production stirred an epiphany, compelling her and her team to revisit and reproduce much of the album’s other material. “We were kind of like, this is our new vibe,” says Shoemaker, “This is who we are now.” Determined to recreate the album in this new image, Anna hit the road again in January, driving 12 hours to Nashville where she would finish the album alongside producer Constantine Anastasakis.
This was a sizable change, given the electro–heavy features of the singer’s earlier work, which pull from a more “remixed” sound. Shoemaker’s previous album is characterized by pulsating, synthetic production paired with pop theatrics. Someone Should Stop Her is a stark shift in the opposite direction. But despite its simple production, the record is thematically complex—a quality her debut lacks, Shoemaker admits, despite holding a special place in her heart. “My last album, I didn't write it as an album. It was more of like a collection of songs that I had written, and then I just put them all together. And this one, I feel like we wrote to be an album. … So we wanted there to be a story.” “Back Again,” according to Anna, was a surprisingly natural transition. “That’s what the music I listen to sounds like,” she explained, “and that was what a lot of our references sound like.” Artists like Kacey Musgraves, Alex G, and Pinegrove were inspirations for her novel, stripped–back sound—a fusion of indie folk and alt–country, minimalistic in production to match the equally sparse, reflective landscape in which Anna found herself.
Shoemaker only becomes more unbridled as her performance continues. The singer paces around, points at audience members, and sways her hips to the music. By now, the crowd has loosened up, highly receptive to Shoemaker’s louder attitude as she stomps her feet along to the lyrics of several songs from her upcoming record—some of which we won’t hear until February. “Holly” and “Game of Thrones” are of those recently released, and it’s clear the singer has a blast performing them. Shoemaker has abandoned her mic stand and guitar, instead opting to belt, “All I think about is Jacob Elordi / And if my personality’s getting boring / It’s no surprise / You can’t get what you want from me” from all corners of the stage; these just might be the most relatable lyrics I’ve heard all year. The singer is fearless, but it’s entertaining to see how she turns back into a humble, almost bashful performer between songs, shyly thanking the audience as the music fades.
The more intimate songs of the night were “Change My Mind”—an older, lovable release—and “Back Again.” Shoemaker’s smoky, resonant vocals, joined sparingly with harmonies from the supporting guitarist, were haunting, and the latter track just might’ve been the best performance of the night (or maybe I’m just partial to the song). It's impressive how easily she does this, given that there’s a raw vulnerability to the music she is performing. Anna's lyrics are full of themes of unrequited love, obsessive longing, and the volatility of navigating your 20s.
“It's a little bit just like, aren't I supposed to be an adult?” Anna goes on, “Like, aren't I supposed to know what is going on? Like, why do I feel just so out of touch with what I need?” It’s these kinds of questions (the ones everyone is thinking but too afraid to ask) that Anna confronts onstage and in the studio. But when asked if she ever finds baring her soul to a sea of strangers at all challenging, her answer is a sensible no. “I mean, it’s not hard. … That [vulnerability] is definitely empowering. It makes me feel like I can get through anything.” For Shoemaker, the real tests are her life’s experiences: the heartbreaks, the letdowns, every skinned knee and hopeless night—the art is the easy part. Songwriting and performance are a testament to her resilience. And if she can put a tune to her heartbreak, she knows she’s survived.
But the singer still has her moments, acknowledging her own battles with authenticity and letting go of control. “The thing that I say in my head on stage is take your time and take up space and like, just allow yourself to be yourself,” she explains. “You know, I think for so long, I was kind of hiding behind a little more of a persona and trying to, trying to be ‘cool,’ for lack of a better word.” Purging herself of this image was a large part of Shoemaker’s soul searching. The New Yorker electro–indie–pop darling Anna Shoemaker of 2022 was a different girl than the one prancing around this intimate venue tonight. Her new self is more self–assured, brighter, and quite frankly, happier—an achievement she says is both hard–won and nonnegotiable.
Shoemaker’s Nashville sessions were a return to her roots, opting for pedal steel and acoustic guitar in an homage to her bar–playing days. But the singer also regained what she says is a stronger sense of self—unrestrained and uninterrupted. In her “Game of Thrones” music video, Anna spends her days in a pickup truck, ignoring calls and sneaking into hot tubs like some roving outlaw. If there’s anything to take away from the playful production, it’s independence, the kind that comes from real, unfiltered alone time—and that’s exactly what Anna needed. “I've really done so much work to not think of myself in the context of other people,” she says. “I kind of made a promise to myself, like I'm not doing that anymore. … I just want it to be me.”
This is the attitude she’s bringing along with her on tour—from stage presence to the instruments she uses, it's all genuine. “[It] does feel really special to be in a place where kind of everything feels like it's coming together. Like these songs, they feel really true to who I am, and to have been on this tour … playing these songs just acoustic, like, it just feels really, really serendipitous and really special to be able to kind of, like, live out my album.”
The night comes to a close, and Shoemaker bids the crowd farewell with a flurry of thank–yous, inviting audience members to say hello in the lobby afterwards. She’s all heart, and if there’s one standout quality about her performance tonight, it’s authenticity. Her presence onstage seemed to gather confidence with every song, culminating in a whirlwind of hair flips and revelry. In a way, it’s emblematic of the same shift in her music and image—a long journey toward something truer.
Someone Should Stop Her marks a decisive turn for the singer; a resolute step in a direction that’s entirely her own. Right now, Shoemaker is wising up, listening to her gut, and living without apology in an industry that’s quick to demand it.
