In just 21, Grace Vanderwaal has lived more life than most singer writers twice in her age-and on her latest album Child star (Released April 4 via Pulse Records), she no longer prays permission to tell her story. She takes the microphone, recycles the story, controls it herself and burns the old script.
Once known as the wide -eyed Ukulele Prodigy who won America’s Got Talent (2016) in just 12, Grace Vanderwaal is no longer the girl that the world remembers. Her latest album, Child starMake it unequivocally clear. At her place stands an artist who is not afraid to confront the uncomfortable-will bring up the emotional wreck of growing up, controlled and hyperbyn. With only nine tracks, Child star is a spooky poetic excavation of identity, autonomy and the aching complexity of coming in age under a spotlight that you never asked for.
Child star Opens with “proud”, a sensitive discovery of the “golden child” myth. The track starts with a boring, Music Box Lullaby – an eerie foreplay to what is developing. But Vanderwaal doesn’t just sing here – she aches, whispers and claws through the wreck of perfection. “Promise that I am little / I won’t take place at all … Mark myself. Remember your place. You have no voice yet. You must not say,” She crowns, peels back the silent anxiety with invisible expectations and internalized performance. It is a song that captures how praise, when it is the string, can be calculated to emotional prison.
“As a child you have this immortal need for validation,” Grace reflects on her song. “In some cases you abandon yourself and you do not get what you need mentally. You choose to be strong, just because it is your responsibility to be strong.” She points to the phrase, “because you are so special”, as a weapon type of love-that tricking children into believing that they have to serve it by being tasty, mature and self-sufficient far too soon. “” Proud “tells the story of the Golden Child Archarket type – a child who suppresses his own needs to be loved, to be valued, to suffice. It was me,” she says. “And that’s why it must be the first track on my new album Childstar.”
Next comes “brand new”, the album’s focus track-a whispered manifesto about self-lens, the desire and the aching blur between performance and possession. The song is built on haunting minimalism and is wonderfully restrained yet emotionally overflowing, with Grace’s voice that barely rises over a breath. It is sensitive, devastating and courageous in its complexity. “It’s a love-hat relationship and a comment on the patriarchy,” She recognizes and speaks to the experience of being sexualized before she completely understands what it even meant.
“Brand new” is undoubtedly her most vulnerable tracks yet – and perhaps her most unclear. “It is important to talk about all different layers,” Grace says. “You wonder,“ What happens if I dream of being a sexy woman? What if there is something I want? Am I still just a girl at the end of the day? “ These are not just rhetorical mushes – they are a confrontation of the tangled expectations of young women who navigate visibility. And in that tension, the track becomes a calm rebellion – one that refuses simple answers.
Then comes “Homesick”, a glimpse elegance to a childhood that never really was. Over gently picked acoustic guitar shakes grace’s voice with raw longing as she mumbles, “I am in their length a day that never happened.” It is a confession that is wrapped in melancholy – a longing for what was, but for what should have been.
“You romanticize an unattainable memory,” she explains. “Nostalgia is painful. We always look back in a moment that we considered the symbol of perfection, but … was it ever real?” It is a fantastic insight – one that remains and echoes into the rest of the album.
On “behavioral problems” and “call it what you want” Grace’s head dives into the cloak between how she has seen and how she feels. Push and pull between perception and reality becomes its own type of battlefield. Over Child starProduction remains spooky minimal; Strings extend, melodies pain and silence become their own language – clearly sparse, so there is nowhere for her to hide. But that’s the point. She is no longer hiding.
Eventually, Child star Is more than a comeback album – it’s a bill. Speaking of the album, she reveals,
“I felt for a long time I was a walking shade of myself. I felt stolen. My name, my face, my body. When I wrote Childstar, I realized, I have something that no one can remove, and that is my story. This album gifted me something I am eternally grateful for, and that is my power.
To bring Child star To life beyond the music revealed Grace Vanderwaal Childstar: final team—A a choreographed short film that she collaborated with Luca Renzi and Jacob Boehme. Visceral, interpretative and emotionally unclear, the visual paragraph has five performances drawn from the core of the album: “Proud”, “Brand New”, “Homesick”, “Fade” and “Behavioral Problems.”
But this is not just a companion video – it’s part of performance art, part of soul exorcism. With each movement and frame, Grace creates a bill in real time, loses polish and plays in RAW. It is the type of visual statement that makes it clear: she does not follow the rules – she writes about the whole playlist.
Next month gives Grace Child star To life on stage, which marks its return to the road with a six-town’s North American headline-Henne’s first since 2019. Kicking on May 4 in Chicago, weaves the tour through Toronto, Washington DC and New York City before arrived in Los Angeles for a double function and closed in San Francisco.
But the girl who takes the stage is not the one the audience remembers. This is a new chapter completely – a bold, burning debut by the artist she struggled to become. Child star Is a rebirth, a requirement for the girl who once was, and a hymn for the woman who now dares to take a seat.
For tickets and tour information, visit gracevanderwaal.com/tour.
Listen to Childstar here – available on all digital streaming platforms!
