Still Learning

“I feel like I’m not ready for an album yet,” Caity Baser tells Apple Music. “When I make an album, I want to sit down and really think about it. I want to have such a creative vision that it’s just undeniably an album.” It’s this distinction that qualifies Still Learning—described by the Southampton-born, Brighton-based singer-songwriter as “comfortable chaos”—as a “mixtape”, albeit a well-formed and cohesive one. It boasts credits from hitmakers including Jon Shave of The Invisible Men, Whyjay & LiTek, Jamie Scott, Future Cut and more. “There’s lots of shit going on, but I kind of like it that way,” says Baser, reeling off a litany of topics and situations she addresses as part of this project. “I talk about friends, family, my fans, relationships…just all sorts of things that you go through as a human being and my interpretation of it all.” Baser, who has seen her career skyrocket since going viral on TikTok in 2020, has spent the last two years in flux, adjusting to a level of success that earned her a nomination for the 2024 BRITs Rising Star award, but opened up a gulf between her and the friends she knew before she was playing sold-out shows up and down the UK. She also emerged from her first heartbreak, having fallen in love with someone who “just wasn’t ever nice to me”, an experience that inspired songs like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Bicker”. The record ping-pongs between between doo-wop-influenced melodrama and punchy, pop-rock choruses (“the vibe when I was doing my writing camp was bad bitch Meghan Trainor and Katy Perry”), tied together with the kind of snappy, unapologetic lyrical form that Baser has down to an art. “I did English Language for GCSE and A-level and ‘point, evidence, explain, link’ is actually how I write a song,” she says. Ultimately, Still Learning is a powerful reminder not to let life get you down—and if it does, you can always write a song about it. Despite the strife and the pain captured in her lyrics, Baser is i