Music Existence Because of Music, We Exist
This October singer songwriter, X Factor star, and YouTube sensation, JANET DEVLIN returns with her addictive new single, “Outernet Song.”
With Janet’s distinctive vocals, her ukulele and one of the catchiest choruses you’ll hear this year, “Outernet Song” has all the makings of a pop classic. Covering our obsession with the Internet and social media, “Outernet Song” showcases Janet’s honest and frank lyricism to great effect and couldn’t be more timely as more and more people embark on a ‘digital detox’.
“This song has long history,” says Janet. “I started writing it on my ukulele when I was 19. Too many mornings spent watching TV and being told how to dress, how to look, and what to eat had worn away my confidence.”
Janet kept the lyrics written down and found herself adding to them at various points over the last couple of years with more verses penned in response to some of the criticism she’s faced in her YouTube comments. “I discovered negative remarks about my appearance, unkind assessments of my talent and apparently being over the hill (at age 20!). I soon became pretty desensitized to it all and learnt to ignore them; but not before writing down how I felt to help me process my feelings and move on.”
Born and raised in Northern Ireland, Janet first caught the public’s attention when she appeared on Series 8 of UK’s X Factor in 2011. She was a viewer’s firm favorite who consistently received the highest consecutive public votes out of all the contestants, eventually coming fifth on the show, before embarking on the X Factor tour. After leaving the X Factor, she took the independent route and in 2014, released her acclaimed debut album, Running With Scissors, reaching Number 1 on the UK Indie Breakers Chart and featuring co-writes with the likes of Jack Savoretti and Newton Faulkner.
Janet’s creativity and output can rarely be stemmed, most evident by the growth of her online presence, predominantly on Facebook and YouTube. Since Running With Scissors, she has been busy creating regular weekly content for her subscribers, treating fans to everything from videos and poetry readings to cover songs and vlogs. Her monthly live online shows continue to draw in huge audiences, and most inspiringly, an income that enables her to keep working as a full time musician.
With such an impressive online following, and a successful post X Factor career built on the dedication of her fans and her online community, could she actually take the kind of social media holiday she sings about on “Outernet Song”?
“Yes. Just a small break is a window to re-evaluate. Sometimes we just need to step outside for a little while and go pet a dog or something. Am I saying that we should run through the meadows into the open arms of Mother Nature and hug trees? No. I mean pressing the pause button on the never-ending scroll. Doing something other than waiting for notifications, emails or likes. Then come back to the magnificent world that is the Internet and see it for what it really is. A perfect place to Google videos of dogs surfing.”
Itching to leave the Internet behind, Janet heads to the “Outernet” and hits the road in the UK in November for her ‘My Opium’ tour, her third UK headline tour with East Coast US dates to be announced shortly. She’s also recently finished filming her screen debut for indie film, “Songbird,” which features two original songs written by Janet especially for the soundtrack. More news on this and her long awaited second album, Holy Water, which is currently being written…Stay tuned!
‘Outernet Song’ is out October 7.
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