Into The Music
Suki Waterhouse released “Back in Love” on March 27, her first single on Island Records after signing with the label in 2025. It’s the opening move of whatever comes next after Memoir of a Sparklemuffin, her 2024 album that fully established her as an artist rather than a model who also makes music.
The song is co-written with Natalie Findlay and Jules Apollinaire and blends 1970s rock with 1990s psychedelia in ways that feel coherent rather than eclectic. The music video is directed by Kaz Firpo. Waterhouse has described the song as being about “coming back to your sense of self after having an identity shift,” which is a reasonable description of both the song and where she is in her career.
The Island Records signing is significant context. She was previously operating more independently, and moving to a major label imprint for the next record suggests both ambition and access to resources. Whether that changes what her music sounds like or just how it’s distributed and promoted is the question that the new album will eventually answer.
She’s on the Lollapalooza 2026 lineup, which means more new material is expected to emerge before the summer. A full album announcement hasn’t been made yet.
“Back in Love” is out now on Island Records.
Island Records has such a deep history , Chris Blackwell built that label on Jamaican music, on Bob Marley, on the understanding that rootsy, personal music could cross any border if you just let it breathe. Suki Waterhouse signing there feels like it carries some of that weight, whether she knows it or not. “Back in Love” as a first move is interesting , it’s an emotional title, forward-facing but vulnerable. I’ll give it time before I decide what it’s doing. First singles are promises more than statements.
island records signing is either a glow-up or a sellout waiting to happen. jury’s out.
I’ll be honest with you , I don’t know Suki Waterhouse from a hole in the ground, and Island Records to me still means Jimmy Cliff and Burning Spear and a time when that label stood for something rootsy and real. But I’ll tell you what, I’ve been surprised before. I said the same thing about a lot of artists who turned out to have something genuine in them, buried under the marketing. So I’ll listen before I judge. Island’s got a history worth respecting, even if it don’t always live up to it these days.
Oscar’s comment about Chris Blackwell is hitting because Island Records has always been this fascinating intersection of colonial history, musical gatekeeping, and genuine cross-cultural love. Blackwell was a white Jamaican who built an empire on Black music , that’s a complicated inheritance. What happens to that legacy when it’s a British indie-pop artist stepping into it? I’m not saying Suki Waterhouse doesn’t deserve the platform. I’m saying the story of who gets to cross which borders on whose label is always worth telling carefully.
There’s something about a first single on a new label that just feels like a first day of school energy, you know? You can hear it , that slightly-too-polished nervousness, trying to make a good impression. I hope she finds her footing fast because ‘Back in Love’ has a softness to it that reminds me of early Norah Jones somehow, and I mean that as a compliment. Some voices need the right room to open up. Maybe Island’s that room for her.
First day of school is right. Though in my experience, the nervous ones either settle in or never do. The song will tell you which.
New label, new single. The question is whether the space around her voice opens up or closes down. Production choices on a debut single usually tell you everything about what the label actually wants.
Petra yes!! I was thinking the exact same thing listening to it. You can kind of feel where the label maybe nudged her in a particular direction and where she pushed back. It’s not quite as raw as some of her older stuff but there are these moments where her voice just cuts through and you’re like, okay, she’s still in there. Curious what the rest of the era sounds like.
What’s interesting from a craft perspective is what a first single on a major label actually has to do, it’s not just a song, it’s a positioning statement. You’re telling listeners, critics, and radio programmers all at once what this era is going to be about. Waterhouse has always had a kind of dreamy, understated quality in her writing, and I’m curious whether Island pushed her toward a bigger, more immediate sound or gave her room to stay in that softer lane. The two approaches require completely different production choices, and you can usually hear the tension when an artist and label aren’t quite agreed.
There is something about a singer moving to a bigger stage that changes the air around the voice, sometimes for better, sometimes not. With Suki Waterhouse I keep listening for where the warmth is, because that was always the thing, that slightly undone quality in her phrasing. If the Island production has kept that, this could be something genuinely beautiful. If it’s been smoothed over, you’ll know in the first chorus.
Okay I listened three times and on the third time I finally found the part where my body wanted to move, right around the second chorus. It’s subtle, more of a sway than a full dance, but it’s there! For a debut single on a big label this actually has more looseness to it than I expected, she didn’t let them iron everything out. More please!!
Island Records!! That’s a serious home, the history in those walls! I’m excited for her, genuinely. “Back in Love” has this lightness to it that I really like, it doesn’t feel like she’s trying to announce herself, it feels like she’s just… arriving. That confidence is everything.