British singer-songwriter Lola Young has always made music with an edge of raw honesty, but in her latest work—and in her exclusive May 2025 playlist for Vogue—she’s channeling that energy into a deeper conversation about beauty. From viral anthems to intimate ballads, the 24-year-old artist curates a musical journey that reframes beauty as confidence, vulnerability, and unapologetic self-acceptance.
Messy, proud, and powerful
“To me, beauty is confidence,” says Lola Young. “It’s knowing who you are and standing in it.” That ethos pulses through “Messy,” the breakout single from her album This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway. With its raw vocals and stripped-down production, the song became a quiet revolution—a viral TikTok hit that inspired a wave of unfiltered storytelling and self-love.
“‘Messy’ is about accepting the things society tells you to hide,” Young explains. “Your flaws, your scars, your past—it’s all part of what makes you beautiful. I didn’t write it to be perfect. I wrote it to be real.” The response has been overwhelming, especially from young fans who’ve felt overlooked by conventional narratives. “They feel seen and heard, and that’s what matters most to me.”
A Playlist That Dares to Look Deeper
In her role as Vogue’s May 2025 Music Director, Young curated a playlist that explores beauty beyond aesthetics. “I wanted to highlight how beauty is experienced emotionally, psychologically, culturally,” she says. The result is a genre-spanning collection that includes Eminem’s defiant “Beautiful,” Beyoncé’s poignant “Pretty Hurts,” and Lana Del Rey’s timeless “Young and Beautiful.”
Each track, says Young, carries a layered message. “There’s something haunting in the way Lana sings about time and love, and how we tie our worth to youth. But aging isn’t ugly. Experiencing the world longer—it’s powerful.” It’s a sentiment that underscores the playlist’s true aim: to unlearn what we’ve been told about beauty and begin seeing it in resilience, in time, in truth.
Telling Her Truth—And Ours
From her early days performing at open-mic nights to sold-out shows and award nominations, Young’s appeal lies in her ability to translate the personal into the universal. Her lyrics, often pulled straight from journal pages, touch on toxic love, fractured friendships, and the long road to self-worth. “I write like I’m speaking to myself,” she says. “But it turns out a lot of people feel the same way.”
That relatability has made her one of Britain’s most compelling young voices. And it’s exactly why her perspective on beauty matters now more than ever. “I think we’re all craving more honesty,” she reflects. “We’re tired of airbrushed everything—emotionally and physically. It’s time to say, ‘I’m a mess, but I’m here. And that’s beautiful.’”
The Sound of Something Real
Lola Young’s music—and her Vogue playlist—sound like resistance in its softest form: not a scream, but a steady hum of self-knowing. In every lyric and every song choice, she’s pushing back against the idea that beauty is something we earn or fix. Instead, she invites us to see beauty as something we already carry.
“I hope people listen and feel a little more at home in their bodies, in their stories,” she says. “Because being yourself isn’t something to apologize for. It’s something to protect.”
With a voice that breaks hearts and builds them back up, and a vision that centers truth over polish, Lola Young is not just reshaping how we sound—she’s reshaping how we see.
