By Jecs Davies

‘The Glorification of Sadness’ was released today (Friday 16 February) with 17 tracks which Paloma says is a chronological journey through the cracking of an adult relationship, and with it a family. The album is a celebration of finding your way back after leaving a long-term relationship, being empowered even in your failures, and taking responsibility for your own happiness.

It includes Paloma’s 2023 single ‘How You Leave a Man’ as well as her songs ‘Bad Woman’ and ‘Pressure’ featuring Kojey Radical. She told Dorset View that these tracks “seemed to be everyone’s favourites” although for her, she loves to dance to ‘Cry on the Dancefloor’.

Paloma also added three interlude tracks using lyrics that never developed into actual songs, but she said: “I like to think of them as sort of like mantras and they make the album much more intimate.”

At the beginning of the 12th track ‘Divorce’, listeners will notice the sound of Paloma’s children’s voices, which she says “just makes it even sadder.”

In her 2021 BBC documentary ‘As I Am’, Paloma was very open about the challenges of being a pop star and a mother. Now as a single mother, she is confronting the public’s assumption that the split must be her fault, or that she should have tolerated misery for the sake of her kids.

“’How to Leave a Man’ is meant to be empowering,” Paloma said. “It’s about taking control and responsibility for your own happiness as a woman. There’s no room for a woman to say, actually I just wasn’t really happy, especially when there’s kids involved. So, in this album, I’m trying to pull it in the direction of it being okay to take ownership of your own happiness and not be a victim.”

Particularly after the documentary, Paloma helped many women by sharing her experiences of birth, postnatal depression and being a mother. She said: “I have people approaching me in a really nice way because they’ve seen stuff I’ve said, and they want to speak candidly and intelligently about those subjects.”

She is now in the final stages of writing a book about her experiences as well as her aims for the feminist movement. People are saying that this is a ‘new era’ of Paloma and when asked about this she told Dorset View: “It’s a new era in a psychological sense.”

Fans will be delighted to hear that to celebrate this, Paloma will embark on The Glorification of Sadness Tour 2024 across the UK and Ireland. She will be performing at the Bournemouth International Centre on 17 May and will also be headlining Southampton Summer Sessions on 28 June.