New Music Friday can be a lot. That's why every week we cut it down to the songs you need to hear for PLAY, our new music edit, and deliver a new cover feature to go alongside it. This week... Chloe Slater.
"You've never been twenty this century," sings Chloe Slater on her debut album, 'Riot Youth'. It's an intensely different kind of frustration, growing up in an environment where each scroll of the news brings more harrowing content, and social media has had its claws in you from a much younger age. It's bound to leave you too worn out too early, desperately trying to communicate your concern but not really getting a word in edgeways against louder voices. At some point, things have to boil over. 'Riot Youth' captures that spill. A chronicling of what is going on in the world right now and what being young and at the centre of an unravelling really feels like, 'Riot Youth' is Chloe Slater's bid to document her own emotions at this time and, inevitably, those of others like her.
"I always just want to write songs from the perspective of me," says Chloe. "But being in your early twenties in 2026 is hard. It's a difficult time. You have access to so much scary information at all times, and you're seeing real-life evidence of everything going to shit at all times. It's important for people like me to feel seen and heard. I hope that when people listen to my music, they feel that way. No one in their twenties really knows who they are or what they're doing fully, but I think it is nice to have a body of work that represents that in some way."
It's something Chloe has been doing since the very beginning of her career. Dodgy landlords, out-of-touch influencers, subpar politicians - all have been promptly taken down by Chloe's pen over the last few years. Some of those tracks, unfortunately, saw Chloe find herself receiving an influx of hate for her willingness to be vocal, the sort of thing that might make a less resolute voice shy away. For Chloe, however, that steadfast commitment to commenting on the world around her was never in doubt.
"It doesn't stop me from speaking out about things, but you can let it seep into your personal life," she admits. "I'd never really experienced that much conflict in my life. I don't really argue with people very much, as much as my music may say otherwise, I'm pretty chill. I've not ever experienced people hating me in that way that they do on the internet in hundreds at a time. You have to go on the internet and laugh it off and carry on, because what else can you do? But that song was just my way of showing people that I am a person with feelings, and it is going to be hard, but I don't think that should stop anyone from speaking up for what they believe in."
It was from that experience that 'I've Never Felt So Hated' was born. The vulnerability and doubt of the track's lyricism seeps into the sonics - guitar lines brimming with gloom and distortion, wryly smiling vocals that capture that condemnation. It's Chloe rising out of the ashes, more determined than ever to voice these frustrations and illuminate the real issues at stake. There's a change of tack, though, that resonates particularly through 'Get Me Out'. A declaration that she is not here to preach, the track cements her mission statement of speaking up and starting conversations. It's never about making overarching statements, but rather sparking new thoughts and encouraging disagreement in the name of becoming more informed. The album is less of a takedown than her music has perhaps tended to be previously, and more an opportunity to find unity even among the most disparate groups.
"True evil is the 1% and billionaires"
On 'Go Outside', one of the album's strongest moments sonically, she particularly hones in on that - caught in a doom-filled loop of scrolling that makes more commonalities between extreme views seem possible, it's a plea to put down the phone and get out into the world and realise that the root of these issues is all the same. Whether you're far right or on the left, there is an anger and disappointment that, albeit for vastly different reasons, is shared.
"'Go Outside' is about the internet and a lot of figures on the internet, especially far-right people, like Elon Musk or Tommy Robinson, and the ways they have caused such divide online and on social media in a way that I don't think existed so much a few years ago. I think this rise in such polarising, clickbait content, which I've even done myself, like 'This song is about Reform voters, I don't like Reform voters', that kind of black and white thinking gets to a point where that's actually really dangerous. These far-right billionaires are using that as a tool to divide people, so that they can't come together and realise what the true evil is. I think a lot of people who are considered far-right or left-wing actually would have a lot of similar values, but they don't realise that because their internet algorithms are pushing them down so much misinformation and these deep tunnels of dodgy stuff. It's making everyone feel like they hate each other, so that we won't come together and rise up against the true evil, which is the 1% and billionaires - there shouldn't be billionaires. We're all angry about the same things, we're just putting different faces to them."
"Hope is the most important thing for human survival"
That division is something Chloe returns to throughout the album - in the left-field breakbeats of 'Can I Finish', and potently, in the album closer, 'Let It Happen', a spacious, unfurling track that feels fresh and new sonically in a way that the album really benefits from. 'Let It Happen' is a poetic finale that ultimately drives home the real message at the core of 'Riot Youth'.
"We're at this point of late-stage capitalism where everyone is so individual, and it's like do your best for yourself, and if your friend is having a birthday party but you're tired, don't go because you don't owe them anything, and don't give your friend a lift to the airport, and if you need a recipe, ask ChatGPT instead. You don't need to talk to your friends anymore. Then all of a sudden, no one feels like they have any friends or any community, and they feel like they can't make any difference in the world. Again, that's when awful people swoop in and take control and fuck up the world because everyone feels like they can't make a difference.
"With 'Let It Happen', it was really important to me to hone in on the depersonalisation of people in our communities. The first line is 'Some guy drops me off at the station' - you order an Uber, you get in. Some people click 'don't talk'. You get out. It's so inhuman, but it's so normal in our society. Also, because we have TikTok and Instagram and we're constantly seeing so many faces, it's almost like people are replacing real human interaction with all of these faces online that they don't even know."
It's interesting to return to the previous tracks on the album, having heard 'Let It Happen', and pull at that thread that tangles throughout. Chloe champions unity and community, and above all else, love - it's those bonds between you and others that help you find some light in the onslaught of horror and act as a centring force throughout it all. As Chloe points out, the kind of extreme, individualistic content we're all mindlessly consuming is isolating and breeds more contempt, and that contempt isn't going anywhere at all. It's unfortunately easy, however, to be pulled down by it and feel as though any kind of meaningful change is beyond your powers. That thread of hope in the album is vital to dissuade that mindset.
"Hope is the most important thing for human survival," argues Chloe. "I think without hope and joy, we wouldn't be anywhere. You can be as angry as you want about things that are going wrong… You need a certain amount of anger to make a change, but you also need hope. They go hand in hand. It's trying to toe the line. A lot of my album is about feeling helpless and feeling like you don't really have much hope. I want the songs to inspire conversation, hope, and change. People aren't really motivated by stuff that scares them. I think that's something a lot of people have realised recently, especially when talking about the climate crisis and things. It's more important to focus on the hope and what we can do, and if we do this, things can get better, rather than if we don't do this, things will be bad. People need to just understand that changes can be made, and it's been done before."
Of course, finding hope when we're fed dark, mournful content, and the world around us feels selfish can be nigh on impossible. Unsurprisingly, however, the moments on the album where that thread of hope is tugged on the hardest are, of course, completely reflective of where we might find it in real life. 'The Underground' is perhaps the best example of this. A rare instance of tenderness and a celebration of love as a rousing force, the track is anthemic and cinematic in its ode to the one who keeps us laughing in the face of bleakness.
"The strength of love and hope, and how important that is to motivate you in life. The song is about moving to London and being surrounded by scary people who don't want to talk to you on the tube, and such a big, hectic place that feels so lonely because it feels like everyone is on their own. It's the power of relationships and love in those settings."
It is those emotions that buoy us throughout it all, and those moments that we should cling to. It's a shield from the outside world, and 'The Underground', along with 'Let It Happen', are instructive - don't let your community fall by the wayside out of despair. Hold the ones that offer you some sort of reprieve from despondency closer. Prioritise those moments of joy, of love, of solace - those are the ones that will see you through. 'Riot Youth' is a force to motivate and to commentate, and it serves well as a means of documenting the raw frustrations of a generation already exhausted. Whilst that's fundamental to the album and Chloe Slater's artistry, there's a case to be made that the album's insistence on finding hope is its most important message. It is hope that prompts action, and keeps us persisting throughout it all, and it is hope that transforms 'Riot Youth' into something more powerful.
Taken from the November 2026 issue of Dork. Chloe Slater's debut album 'Riot Youth' is out now.
