Emma Blackery
Emma Louise Blackery is an English singer-songwriter, YouTube vlogger, record producer, and author. Active since 2012, Blackery has released EPs, singles, and Vevo music videos. She has toured with Busted, and headlined tours for her debut studio album Villains, released on her RWG Records label in 2018.
In 2015, Blackery's main YouTube channel had over one million subscribers. She performed and was a panelist at YouTube events, and has contributed twice to the YouTube Rewind video series. Blackery's [|book], Feel Good 101: The Outsiders' Guide to a Happier Life, is based on her 2013 Feel Good 101 video series.
Career
Blackery was born in Basildon, and worked as a waitress before beginning her career as musician and YouTuber.In 2018, she founded her independent record label RWG Records. She experimented with influencer marketing on her blog and in a video published under a free Creative Commons licence.
Music
Blackery released her first EP, Human Behaviour, in early 2012. Blackery released her second EP, Distance, in July 2013. A music video for the lead track, "Go the Distance," was produced by Arthur Walwin. Her third EP, Perfect, was released on 11 November 2014. Its title track topped the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart for one week, and entered the UK Rock & Metal Singles Chart at number eight. In 2015, Elle included Blackery on its "30 Women Under 30 Who Are Changing the World" list.Jason Perry produced Blackery's fourth EP, Sucks to Be You, which was released in 2016. Its title track peaked at number 85 on the Scottish Singles Chart. On 4 April 2016, Blackery announced that she would join pop punk band Busted on their Pigs Can Fly tour. "Sucks to Be You" was the runner-up for the first Summer in the City Song of the Year award. After touring with Busted, Blackery toured on her own and performed her music at other YouTube events.
She released her fifth EP, Magnetised, on 26 May 2017. It charted at number 63 on the UK Albums Chart, and peaked at number five on the UK Independent Albums Chart and number two on the Official Independent Album Breakers Chart. On 6 August, Blackery received a Summer in the City Song of the Year award for "Nothing Without You". The cover art for Magnetised was featured at the Apple Keynote event for the iPhone X in September 2017.
She founded her independent record label, RWG Records, in 2018. On 16 March 2018, she released "Dirt", produced by Toby Scott. The song, on Spotify's New Music Friday UK playlist, was described by Record of the Day as a "slick combination of Scandi-pop" and "sassy American pop"; Blackery described "Dirt" as "best served cold". She also released "Agenda" with a lyric video on Vevo, followed by "Icarus" and "Take Me Out".
, 2018 Blackery released her debut studio album, Villains, on 31 August 2018. The album contains songs written in collaboration with Toby Scott, Maxwell Cooke, and Peter Hutchings. BroadwayWorld noted that "Petty" "flirts with tropical house", and the Express & Star cited elements of power pop. Lisa Hafey, praising "Third Eyes "upbeat disco sound" and "nice ABBA-y vibe", called Villains "a bit of a feminist album". In June Blackery performed "Third Eye" live at the 9th VidCon Night of Awesome. Blackery then partnered with HMV for a UK tour. Villains reached number 24 on the UK Albums Chart and number 18 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart. Thomas Smith noted in an NME blog how Apple events helped Sofi Tukker, Emma Blackery, and Odesza in their careers.
The European Villains Tour, planned for March 2018, was postponed until October. London based singer-songwriter Lilly Ahlberg was the tour's special guest. The three-week tour began at Oslo's Parkteatret on 4 October, followed by performances in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Sugarfactory, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Academy 2, O2 Institute2, The Garage, and Tramshed before ending at KOKO in London on 25 October. A Never Enough Notes reviewer at KOKO saw "angst, passion, and energy in every word" and wrote that Blackery has "a knack for live shows; full of attitude, high energy and a phenomenal vocal performance".
Blackery released "Cute Without You", produced with Toby Scott, in April 2019. In July 2019, she performed at the Evoke festival in Brentwood and for BBC Radio 5 Live, where Nihal Arthanayake interviewed her for his Headliners series. In December she performed "Plot Holes" for the first SitC Winter Edition at NEC.
YouTube
Blackery was initially inspired by Shane Dawson, Smosh, Dan Howell, Phil Lester and, in 2017, by Troye Sivan. In 2018, Blackery had three active YouTube channels; other channels have been deleted, re-branded, or left inactive.- Emma Blackery – Blackery's main channel, created in May 2012, on which she hosts vlogs, music videos, comedy sketches, and other content. Although she began to develop a following by reading excerpts from Fifty Shades of Grey on her channel, the videos were removed due to copyright complaints. In 2018, the channel had nearly 1.5 million subscribers.
- EmmaBlackeryVEVO – created to upload her Vevo music videos, including "Nothing Without You", "Magnetised", "Don't Come Home", "Dirt", "Agenda", "Icarus", and Take Me Out.
- Vloggery – dedicated to vlogs, including her IPOAD series of longer videos and other content not on her main channel. Blackery presented Summer in the City 2017 in three videos. EmmaBlackeryVEVO, Vloggery, and the Topic channel have been closed to subscription since May 2019, and all videos are on the main channel.
Some of her most-viewed videos are "If Tampon Commercials Were Honest", "The Sims in Real Life", and "If Websites Started Dating". Blackery's "My thoughts on Google+" video went viral in 2013, after Tubefilter featured it as the best reaction to a new YouTube comment system. Blackery sang it again in November 2018 to celebrate the end of Google+. In December 2016, TenEighty included her "YouTube Heros " as one of their "Five of the Best: Parody Videos".
Book
Blackery wrote Feel Good 101: The Outsiders' Guide to a Happier Life, addressing depression, self-harm, anxiety and other issues. The book was published in September 2017.Personal life
Blackery grew up in Basildon, Essex, finished sixth form at Bromfords School, and currently lives in Brighton. Her half-sister was born in 2007. In 2015, Blackery disclosed that she had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and supported Liberty in North Korea. She is a WWE and Zelda fan with a Triforce tattoo, often visible in videos and images. TenEighty interviewed Blackery and noted that she admits "her flaws and lays her damages out for everyone to see".Her music is influenced and inspired by Blink-182, Green Day, Tessa Violet, The White Stripes, My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Avril Lavigne, Placebo, Nine Inch Nails, Twenty One Pilots, and Taylor Swift. On #WomanCrushWednesday 2017, The Daily Dot quoted YouTube's Culture and Trends team lead Earnest Pettie as calling Blackery "a thoughtful, funny, ferocious feminist unafraid of having an opinion".