“I think that any relationship between a mother and a daughter is inherently complicated,” Sabrina Teitelbaum says
Blondshell, a.k.a. Sabrina Teitelbaum, is back with the cathartic rocker “What’s Fair.”
Teitelbaum has been performing the new track on the festival circuit this summer, but she officially released it on Wednesday, paired with a fuzzy video of her and her band in the studio. It sonically harks back to Nineties alt-rock and SoCal pop punk, with a sunny melody masking darker lyrics that explore trauma in mother-daughter relationships: “I grew up fast without you/Did my lashes in the bathroom/And some things you’d like to skip/16 sucking dick in the bathroom.”
“I think that any relationship between a mother and a daughter is inherently complicated,” Teitelbaum said in a statement. “Maybe it’s because of my own relationship, which was grounded in a lot of trauma and loss, but I think it’s always confusing. What are you allowed to expect, what is normal, what behavior from a parent is okay or not okay etc? And to what extent does ‘normal’ even matter, when your experience is all you have? I was just trying to sift through the past when I wrote this song, and I mostly had a lot of questions.”
“What’s Fair” follows “Docket,” Blondshell’s excellent collaboration with Bully (the duo later released a video) that landed on Rolling Stone‘s list of the Best Songs of 2024 So Far. Teitelbaum has been touring extensively since the release of her self-titled debut last year (check out the photos she shared with us from the road).
At Lollapalooza, Teitelbaum spoke to Rolling Stone about her new record. “It feels more grown up,” she said. “I know who I am more now than I did a couple years ago. I am a mature woman making an album.”
