NME’s latest star of The Cover, Debbii Dawson, has compiled an exclusive playlist to accompany the story’s launch – check it out below.
The rising singer-songwriter is on this week’s (August 18) edition of The Cover, a weekly manifestation of NME’s commitment to supporting emerging talent across the globe on a weekly basis. Every week, a rising artist will feature on The Cover – you can read the profile of Debbii Dawson here, written by Crystal Bell and featuring photography by Carianne Older.
To accompany The Cover, Debbii Dawson has curated an eclectic, exclusive playlist for NME featuring tracks and genres that are as varied as her own music. Titled ‘Random Songs I Like’, the collection includes French nu-disco band L’Impératrice’s ‘La Lune’, Dionne Warwick’s Grammy-winning hit ‘Déjà Vu’, ‘The Conflict of the Mind’ by Norwegian musician AURORA, Val Halen’s cover of ‘You Really Got Me’ and more. Listen to the full playlist on Spotify below and on Apple Music.
In this week’s The Cover, Dawson opens up about a period where she abandoned music entirely. “I didn’t play piano, nothing, for like two years,” she recalls. But when her mental health dipped, she found her way back through composition – first as whispered classical instrumentals recorded alone in the basement, later with lyrics she never intended to share. Eventually, keeping those songs to herself began to feel wrong. “Music is a gift,” she says. “It’s meant to be shared. Sitting on it started to feel disgusting, like pond water.”
She also touched on how music to her is “like electricity”, a force that existed before humans and was discovered rather than invented. Writing a song, then, is about “tuning into the station” with like-minded collaborators, catching the wavelength that already exists. That process, she says, works best when approached with a childlike spirit: curious, open, and always willing to play.
Find out more about Debbii Dawson in the full Cover story here and see who else has been on The Cover here.