A Letter to Me wasn’t Dixie D’Amelio’s only title for her debut album. She also considered titles like Lucky, a common word seen throughout the album and Model, a reference to D’Amelio’s 13th track of the same name about her struggles with perfection. “Both of those are very sarcastic titles, so if you just saw the name, you’d be like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so conceited,’ so that’s why we didn’t go with them,” D’Amelio tells StyleCaster at a release concert for A Letter to Me at Puma’s flagship store in New York City.
For D’Amelio, A Letter to Me best encompasses the variety of musical genres she included in her debut album, from pop-funk song “Not Enough” to ‘80s-inspired title track, “A Letter to Me.” “I was in the studio wanting to make as many songs as I could and see how many different styles I can do and what my voice can do. I ended up liking all the different types of songs, and I put them all into one album,” she says. “We went with the title A Letter to Me because I just felt like that’s what represented the album the most and that’s what I felt was the most powerful song.”
The last song on the album is “Be Happy,” D’Amelio’s debut single in 2020 about her experience with mental illness and depression. “Be Happy” is the only single from D’Amelio’s early days in music that she included in A Letter to Me. “I just wanted to show my growth on the album. I have all the new songs, and to then end with ‘Be Happy’ was to step back and be like, ‘This is where I started.’ You can listen to it again, and that’s where I am now,” she says. “Even though ‘Be Happy’ is my first song and I definitely can hear the vocal struggles on that song because I’ve grown a lot, I thought it was important to have on the album.”
Image: Courtesy of HitCo.
With more than 34 million followers (and counting) on TikTok, D’Amelio understands that most of her fans come from social media. But when it comes to promoting her own music on TikTok, D’Amelio isn’t sure becoming a social media trend is the direction she wants to go. “I definitely know I need to, but at the same time, I get a little nervous about posting on TikTok. Not for any reason besides I just get in my own way,” she says. “I’m just like, ‘Oh my God. That’s so odd. People are making videos to the songs I make.’ If someone listens to a song, you don’t see them listening to it. But if someone makes a video to it, you see their whole reaction and what they do to it.”
For D’Amelio, music has been a learning process, which is why she doesn’t look back at the mistakes she’s made in the industry with regret. “I try not to think of the bad times. Everything has been such a learning process,” she says. “Anything negative that might have happened, it’s turned into something positive now that the album is out.”
As for her dream collaboration, D’Amelio only has one name, another former social media star who’s become a multi-platinum selling artist. “I always say the same person. Shawn Mendes,” she says. “I love that he also started on social media and now he is where he is today. I am a huge fan of him.”
A Letter to Me by Dixie D’Amelio is available on Amazon
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