A bonafide Kiwi hitmaker
Two months after leaving school, Anna Robinson got the attention of the man behind Lorde’s breakthrough album. Glenn McConnell tracks the rise of our latest sensation.
Anna Robinson is ‘‘a bonafide pop hit maker’’, as per Spotify. She’s a Kiwi musician whose every song is a sure-fire banger. And when you release hit after hit, life is sure to change fast. In just the past two years, a lot has changed for Anna, namely her name. She’s gone from being known as Anna to being on a last-name basis with the world at large. She’s Robinson, the Nelson hitmaker behind songs such as Nothing to Regret, Medicine and Don’t You Forget About Me.
She’s spent two years releasing hits and breaking into the pop consciousness, after taking a gamble when she finished high school and deciding to focus on songwriting – despite having no record label or agent.
Last February, Spotify Australasia editor Alicia Sbrugnera was singing Robinson’s praises when the singer amassed 6 million streams for her song Nothing to Regret. ‘‘It’s infectious, feel-good pop,’’ she said. Now, the track has about 60 million streams on the platform.
Her steady rise has come as a surprise, simply because she claims to have lost any idea about what people will like.
‘‘I have this flat line of I don’t know what’s good any more, because I write so much stuff I just send off everything.’’
Despite her attempts to downplay her songwriting ability, it’s obvious her label and manager reckon they’ve found a rising star.
Her label, Universal Music, has her working with the likes of Joel Little – the producer behind Lorde’s breakthrough album.
Nothing To Regret was written in New York, Robinson says. She’d been sent on a songwriting expedition.
‘‘It was, first of all, a really special session because it was my first in New York and it was so magic. I was so excited to be there.’’
The Kiwi star has released just five songs. Like many new artists, she’s avoided albums even though she has a hoard of written songs waiting to be recorded. Focusing on singles, she says, is a better way for audiences to find out what she’s about.
Song writing has been the 22-year-old’s go to for years. When she went back home to Nelson for Christmas, her creative spirit proved problematic for the rest of her family’s sleep patterns.
‘‘I was up to 4am writing so much stuff. I’d have my sister banging on the door, saying ‘I’ve got work tomorrow, shut up!’’’
It was her songwriting ability that caught the attention of heavy-hitting Kiwi producers. Robinson was 18, had just finished high school, and lived at home. It took just two months for Robinson to catch the attention of the music industry.
‘‘Ash [her manager] sent some stuff to Joel, and I guess that’s when my relationship started with him in terms of working in the music world,’’ she says.
She had chosen to stay at home, making music, instead of continuing on with education. It was a decision she didn’t make lightly.
‘‘I felt that pressure to go to uni because all my friends were going and you can feel self-conscious pressure that you must do this particular thing to be accepted,’’ she says. There was also that question around how long the budding musician could wait, before being picked up.
‘‘Obviously, I couldn’t sit around and wait forever,’’ she says. Instead, Robinson says she’s ‘‘always been chasing it’’ all through her childhood and high school years.
The singer isn’t the type of person who’s overflowing with self-confidence. When she writes, she says she ‘‘doubts each idea 100 times’’. But she does back herself.
She says she’s always wanted to write. When she started high school, she decided she wanted to be a musician. At the early stage, she committed herself to the cause.
‘‘I remember being 14 and pestering my mum for a year, telling her we needed to head to America. I was like, ‘that’s how it’s going to happen, we’ve got to move’,’’ she says.
Although they didn’t move to the US, Robinson says she wouldn’t be where she is now had her family not supported her music ambitions.
‘‘My mum, she knows how much I want to do this,’’ Robinson says.
Her next steps: Tour Europe, and make more music. ‘‘More singles, I reckon. I think they are a really important way to connect with people.’’
With five singles out, and bookings to perform across the globe, releasing more singles certainly seems like a good idea.