They listen to what their heart wants to listen to.
From a park bench in Boston where she once quietly wrote down her dreams, Laufey Jónsdóttir has grown into a figure who defies the tidy borders music critics prefer — neither purely jazz nor purely pop, but something that younger listeners receive simply as honest and beautiful. Her latest album, 'A Matter of Time,' marks a deliberate step into emotional vulnerability, shaped by the disorienting experience of falling in love for the first time after a childhood devoted entirely to discipline and classical training. In sold-out arenas and viral collaborations alike, she offers a reminder that when art is rooted in genuine feeling, it finds its audience across every corner of the world.
- A Grammy win, a Coachella billing, and a Fortnite collaboration arrived in the same week — signaling that Laufey has crossed from niche jazz darling into something far larger and harder to categorize.
- Her new album deliberately leaves in cracked notes and imperfect vocals, a conscious rupture with the technical control that defined her earlier work and her entire upbringing.
- The emotional chaos of falling in love for the first time in her early twenties — after a childhood without rebellion, dating, or disorder — became the raw fuel the album needed.
- Twenty thousand fans packed London's O2 Arena, including an eighteen-year-old who had traveled alone from Cyprus, drawn together by music they found through algorithms rather than record stores.
- She returned to the Boston park bench where she had written her earliest ambitions, finding not the relief of arrival but the momentum of acceleration — the hamster wheel, she says, but a joyful one.
Laufey Jónsdóttir's most recent music video required her to slap an actor across the face with a wet fish — repeatedly, across multiple takes — until the shot was right. The scene, set against a 1960s Los Angeles backdrop for her song Mad Woman, gave the 27-year-old Icelandic musician an unexpected gift: permission to scream, improvise insults, and access a fury her ordinary life rarely allows. She called it cathartic, and said it drew on the deepest memories of when she had felt most wronged. For an artist known for delicate jazz-inflected arrangements and witty confessional lyrics, it was a revealing departure.
Laufey began her musical life at four years old in Reykjavik, studying piano and cello with the seriousness of a child who had skipped ordinary adolescence entirely. She didn't date, didn't drink, didn't rebel. When she arrived at Berklee College of Music in Boston, she began blending her classical foundation with a love of movie musicals and Taylor Swift, uploading her first song and reluctantly labeling herself a 'singer-songwriter' because the submission form demanded a single genre. Critics have been debating where she belongs ever since. She finds the debate more relevant to older listeners than younger ones, who, she observes, simply follow what moves them.
Her album 'A Matter of Time' was built around the emotional wreckage of her first experience of falling in love — a period she describes as pure chaos, arriving late after years of disciplined self-denial. The record follows a relationship's arc toward its own destruction, punctuated by a ticking clock and excursions into soul, Brazilian rhythm, and deliberately discordant strings. For the first time, she left imperfections in: cracked notes, raw moments, the sound of someone still figuring things out. She wrote the album's final, most fractured track first, then worked backward toward romance.
The album won the Grammy for best traditional pop vocal album and arrived alongside a Coachella appearance and a Fortnite collaboration — a convergence that illustrated how thoroughly she had escaped the jazz niche. In March, she sold out two nights at London's O2 Arena, where fans dressed in her signature floaty gowns and chanted lyrics like prayers. One had flown alone from Cyprus at eighteen. Laufey marveled at the geography of it — that social media could gather people from such distant corners around something so specific.
Six years before those arena nights, she had sat in Boston's Public Garden and written down her dream of making a living as an artist. Last October, she returned to the same bench, brushed away the autumn leaves, and sat with a coffee and the strange sensation of having arrived somewhere she hadn't quite dared to name. The wheel keeps turning, she says — but it feels less like exhaustion than like wonder.
Laufey Jónsdóttir, the 27-year-old Icelandic musician, recently found herself doing something she'd never done before: slapping an actor across the face with a wet fish hard enough to send him tumbling into a swimming pool. The scene was part of the music video for her song Mad Woman, filmed in Los Angeles with a 1960s aesthetic and a supporting cast that included Olympic medallist Alyssa Liu. The actor, Hudson Williams from the show Heated Rivalry, bore the brunt of her rage—though it was all in service of a story about a woman trapped in a relationship with someone entirely wrong for her. Laufey laughed about it afterward, calling the experience cathartic. She'd needed multiple takes to get the shot right, and each one gave her license to improvise insults and scream in a way her everyday life rarely permits. "I'm not a very angry person but it felt good to scream and shout," she reflected. "I dug into my deepest memories of when I've been the most wronged by men and I accessed a part of myself I didn't know I had in me. It felt very primal."
For anyone who knows Laufey's music, primal is perhaps the last word that comes to mind. Since 2022, she has built a devoted following with songs that blend jazz vocals and orchestral arrangements with confessional, witty lyrics about love and heartbreak. The style emerged during her time at Boston's Berklee College of Music, drawing on her classical training—she began learning piano and cello at age four in Reykjavik—and her love of movie musicals and Taylor Swift. When she uploaded her first song, Street by Street, a piece about reclaiming favorite places after a breakup, she faced a simple problem: the submission form demanded a single genre. She chose "singer-songwriter," but the question of where exactly Laufey belongs in the landscape of popular music has puzzled critics ever since. She finds the whole debate somewhat beside the point. "Older audiences are always trying to figure me out," she says. "Like, 'Is she a jazz musician? Is she a pop musician? Is she a cellist?' And I find with my younger audience, they don't have this predetermined bias for what they're meant to enjoy. They listen to what their heart wants to listen to."
Her latest album, A Matter of Time, released last August, gave her the first real chance to show all the dimensions of her artistry at once. Structured around the arc of a relationship, the record is threaded through with the sound of a ticking clock, marking time toward the moment when anxiety and insecurity destroy everything. She ventures into new sonic territory—the soul-inflected lead single Silver Lining, the Brazilian rhythms of Lover Girl, and the discordant pianos and jarring strings of Sabotage, the album's final track. Notably, she wrote Sabotage first, before working backward toward the more romantic material. "The whole album was a challenge to myself to push beyond my artistic walls, to be a little scared," she explains. For the first time, she allowed raw emotion to override technical perfection, leaving in imperfect notes and vocal cracks that expose vulnerability in ways her earlier work did not.
The album was born from her first experience of falling in love—an experience that felt simultaneously thrilling and destabilizing. She grew up as a disciplined classical musician, practicing relentlessly from childhood, and she never allowed herself the ordinary rebellions of youth. "I didn't date, I didn't drink, I didn't do the silly things," she says. "I didn't have a rebellious bone in my body. So at the age of 20 or 21, when I first started falling in love and learning about life, it felt like pure chaos, because I certainly had not figured anything out." That emotional confusion became the engine of the album. She continues to write about love and relationships obsessively, she says, because she is still trying to sort out her feelings, still playing catch-up with the ordinary experiences she missed.
A deluxe version of the album arrived with Mad Woman as its opening track, followed by more reflective bonus songs that function as a kind of postmortem on her romantic life. The album has already won the Grammy for best traditional pop vocal album, a recognition that speaks to how thoroughly she has transcended the "traditional jazz" category. In the same week she played second on the bill at Coachella and launched a collaboration with the video game Fortnite—evidence of how completely she has escaped the bubble of niche jazz audiences to become something closer to a generational phenomenon.
That reach became visible when she played two sold-out nights at London's O2 Arena in March, transforming the 20,000-capacity venue into something resembling a fairytale castle. Fans arrived in approximations of her signature floaty ballgowns and 1920s flapper dresses, chanting lyrics like mantras. One fan, barely 18, had traveled alone from Cyprus for the first time, determined to see her perform. "Who'd have known if a Cypriot boy could have found out about me back in the day?" Laufey marveled. "But now, with social media and globalisation, you can find your niche anywhere. I think that's why my concerts feel so special, because we're all just collected together from different corners of the world."
Six years earlier, she had sat on a park bench in Boston Public Garden and written down her dream of making a living as an artist. She was a student then, with no real success to speak of, but she believed in the power of committing ambitions to paper. Last October, she returned to that same bench, swept away the rust-red leaves of autumn, and sipped a coffee while reflecting on how far she had come. "I absolutely always hoped that I'd be able to make it to this level, but I don't think I dared to write it down," she says. "It just seemed beyond reach." Now, as her career keeps accelerating, she finds herself not weighed down but energized. "I definitely feel like I'm in the hamster wheel, but not in a bad way. It's just like more and more exciting things keep happening." And yes, sometimes those exciting things involve slapping a man in the face with a fish.
Citações Notáveis
I accessed a part of myself I didn't know I had in me. It felt very primal.— Laufey, on filming the Mad Woman music video
I didn't date, I didn't drink, I didn't do the silly things. So at 20 or 21, when I first started falling in love, it felt like pure chaos.— Laufey, on her disciplined upbringing and first experience of love
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
You grew up so disciplined—piano at four, cello lessons, no rebellion. How does that show up in your music now?
It's all over the album. I was so controlled as a kid that when I finally fell in love at 20, it felt like chaos. I didn't know how to handle any of it. So I write about it obsessively, trying to sort myself out.
And the Mad Woman video—the fish scene—that felt like permission to be angry?
Completely. I'm not an angry person naturally. But I tapped into memories of being wronged, and something primal came out. It was cathartic in a way I didn't expect.
Your younger fans don't seem to care about genre the way older listeners do. Why do you think that is?
They just listen to what their heart wants. They don't have the baggage of "this is jazz" or "this is pop." They're free in a way my generation wasn't.
You sat on a park bench in Boston six years ago and wrote down your dream. Did you really believe it would happen?
Not really. It seemed beyond reach. But I think there's power in writing it down—you organize the thought, even if you don't dare to fully believe it.
What does it feel like now, playing sold-out arenas, collaborating with Fortnite, winning Grammys?
Like I'm in a hamster wheel, but in the best way. More and more exciting things keep happening. I'm not weighed down by it—I'm energized.