Calum Scott celebrates self-compassion on his euphoric new single, At Your Worst.
The follow-up to the singer-songwriter’s Jax Jones collaboration, Whistle, is a breezy but hard-hitting anthem, graced with lush guitar and hypnotic synths.
Of the track, which is a bold departure from the piano-driven balladry of his previous hits, Calum – who will return to the UK stage next March for a one-off gig at London’s Eventim Apollo – says: “At Your Worst was born from a feeling that sometimes it might be hard for someone to love me because of my anxieties, my time away, my self-doubt but also from the realisation that we are all worthy of being loved no matter our flaws or insecurities.
“This could be a song reassuring someone that you’ll love them no matter what, but it’s also a song to yourself: a reminder that you should love yourself at your worst, because self-love is the most important.
“The sound on this one feels nostalgic and retro to me – kind of takes me back to my Sega Mega Drive,” he adds. “I’m excited to share new music with my fans and show everyone what I’ve been working on!”
Listen to At Your Worst below.
Calum found success following his appearance on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ in 2015, when his piano ballad rendition of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own took the musician into the global charts in 2016.
Amid the success, however, he struggled to come to terms with his newfound fame and admits that, compared with his chart peers such as Lewis Capaldi and Ed Sheeran, he didn’t feel “cool”.
He told RETROPOP: “At one point in my career, after Dancing On My Own and into You Are The Reason, I started to think, ‘I’m just not cool enough.’
“My ego got a little bit in the way and I started thinking, ‘I’m just not cool. I don’t have that kind of edge about me’. And then Lewis Capaldi comes on the scene and he’s got this really gravelly voice, singing a love ballad, and everybody loves him. And I got massive impostor syndrome.
“Like, ‘He’s cool, he’s singing ballads – how come I’m not cool?’ But I was thinking of it in the wrong way.”
He reflected: “I was trying to define what cool is, but cool is of a moment. Popper trackies were cool at one point. Nobody’s wearing those anymore.”
Now, he’s comfortable with the sound that’s opened his career up to fans worldwide and taken his music internationally to audiences across the globe.
“I’ve made peace with the fact that you’re probably not going to put a Calum Scott album on before you go on a night out,” quipped the hitmaker. “What I did come to realise is that these songs – especially from the first album – have had a really significant impact on people where they’ve gone, ‘I want this as my wedding song,’ or, ‘I want this to be played while I walk down the aisle.’
“I get messages from people saying, ‘Oh, we played this at my cousin’s funeral,’ or birthdays, or whatever it is. And I think that, to me, is cool.
“The fact that my music soundtracks people’s lives is very cool.”
READ MORE: Calum Scott: ‘I used to have massive imposter syndrome – now I’ve given up trying to be cool!’
