PERRIE: THE COMPLETE SONG

OCTOBER 2025

Words by Vasili Papathanasopoulos

Cover photo by Lucy and Lydia Connell - The Twins Shot This.

With over 75 million records sold worldwide, six studio albums and five UK number-one singles, having one of the longest-charting albums on the UK Official Charts, sold-out tours and a trove of awards, it is finally time for Perrie Edwards to introduce herself to the world. Better known as one part of the beloved girl group, Little Mix, Edwards has unveiled her debut solo album - a body of work fourteen years in the making. Throughout the years, we’ve watched her grow into the self-assured woman she is today, followed the good and the bittersweet moments.

Edwards path to Perrie began in 2022 following Little Mix’s hiatus after their final UK tour. Her debut solo single, Forget About Us, arrived in 2024, a shimmering blend of pop melodies with country influences, co-written with Ed Sheeran. Her distinctive tone and expansive vocal range remained front and centre, marking a confident first step into a new chapter. But the weight of launching a solo career after global success was impossible to ignore. “I think for everybody who must have experienced it, they must feel the same way,” she reflects. “When you are in a well-known band and a successful band and you're already really established, I feel like when you then go solo - there's the expectation that comes with that.” Conversely, she has the advantage of already having a grand fanbase and a deep understanding of the industry. But that visibility brings its own challenges, particularly in how her music is received. “I think the thing I've struggled with the most is probably one; the comparison, and two; the expectations.” Still, the process of going solo has brought clarity. “I'm learning that I can't actually please everybody,” she says. “I'm not going to be able to tick every box every time, and make everyone happy. So I have to just do what I wanna do. And if I'm happy, then that's it.”

The landscape of the music industry has changed dramatically since Little Mix won The X Factor in 2011. Social media was far less pervasive, Spotify had only just launched in the United States, and TikTok was still nearly a decade away from consuming mobile phones. Edwards wonders whether starting out anonymously today might actually be less complicated. “If I was an artist just starting from scratch coming up on TikTok, or coming up somewhere and nobody knew me, there would be no prior expectations to meet.” she says. Navigating the music industry today is no small task, especially when it comes to preserving artistic integrity in the face of external pressures. Edwards notes that beyond herself as an entity, she is still backed by a team and a label who, as she puts it, have their own “visions and what they want.” During her years in Little Mix, that weight was shared. “We would just stick together and there would be four voices and we'd put our foot down like, 'we're doing this' and we had each other to fall back on and we'd walk out the room and be like, ‘well that was scary.' But we did it,” she recalls. Now, as a solo artist, the responsibility is entirely her own. “Now that I'm solo, I'm like, 'oh God, I have to be everything at once.' It is a crazy dynamic to go from one to the other. But it has its pros and its cons.” Now, Edwards is learning to navigate not just a shifting industry, but the evolving expectations that come with standing on her own.

Releasing a solo album has always been a priority for Edwards, a creative milestone she has worked toward with quiet determination. I ask her how it feels to see Perrie come to life as a complete body of work that truly reflects who she is as an artist. Her response is immediate and heartfelt. “I think I feel every emotion possible to feel in the human body,” she says. “I feel euphoria, I feel excitement, I feel relieved.” Her voice carries a sense of release, the kind that comes only after a long, uphill climb. She reflects on the journey to this point, one filled with delays and setbacks, and the significance of finally reaching it. “This is what I've cared the most about is getting an album in the world,” she says. “I just wanted to be an album artist and have a body of work out there and it's took me so long and there's been so many hurdles and obstacles along the way that I'm like, 'finally! It's happening.'” There is a triumph in her tone, the kind born not from overnight success, but from years of resilience, patience, and an unwavering belief in the music she wanted to make.

That confidence wasn’t always there. In fact, early in the album-making process, it was often missing. “I think at the start I hated songwriting,” she admits. “Not hated it in a way that I was like, 'oh, this just isn't for me.' I just thought I wasn't very good at it.” It’s a surprising admission from someone who’s spent over a decade in the music industry, but it speaks to a deeper mindset that has shaped her creative process. Edwards describes herself as a perfectionist in all areas of life, even outside the studio. She laughs as she shares an example involving her partner, footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. “He keeps trying to say like, 'come to golf, why don't you take up golf?” she says, “but if I'm not the best at something, I don't wanna do it. I'm that stubborn.” That same inner critic followed her into the writing sessions for Perrie. At first, self-doubt crept in, convincing her that she wasn’t capable of writing at the level she aspired to. “I had really bad imposter syndrome and I didn't think I was like capable or good enough or whatever I wrote would never compete with the best songwriters in the world writing for me.” The names involved in the album certainly set the bar high. Among her collaborators are Ed Sheeran, Nina Nesbitt, Maegan Cottone and David Hodges. “Ed Sheeran sends me a song and I write a song, in my mind I was like, 'well, who the hell's gonna do it better? Obviously him.' That's just my mentality,” she says. “That's how I went in to my album and creating it and building it. I wanted to A&R myself or make sure everything I wanted was right for me.” But with time, something shifted. The initial version of the album didn’t feel fully authentic to her, and stepping back gave her clarity. She realised she needed to take control of her narrative and fully trust her own creative instincts. “I was like, 'do you know what? I'm gonna give it my best shot. I'm gonna write, I'm gonna make it more me and see where I get.’” Letting go of the pressure to be perfect allowed her to step into her power as a songwriter. Instead of trying to compete, she chose to contribute. “I'm just so proud that I actually took the leap and was like, 'of course you can write music. Come on, you're good at this. Knuckle down and do this.’” She tells me choosing her collaborators was an organic process, leaning into relationships she had already formed. “I think I just kind of made relationships with people that just worked in that environment. I worked with so many incredible people and I was so blessed to work with people that were just so lovely and encouraging and supportive and everything like that.” She notes her work with Nesbitt, Cottone and The Nocturnes was a turning point full of jubilance. “We kind of took the piss a little bit and it was like, we didn't take it too seriously. We just wanted to enjoy music for what it is. I think that's when it started to really click together for me when I found those people.” Edwards had previously worked with Cottone during her Little Mix days, dubbing her “my Meg Stefani [laughs].”

Whilst we’re well acquainted with Edwards’ powerhouse vocals - you could argue there are weekly posts on social media declaring “damn, that girl can sing” - Perrie feels like a reintroduction. Over the course of the album, Edwards explores all the caverns of her voice, showcasing not just range but emotional texture. The record peaks with Miss You, a soaring ballad that easily holds its own against Christina Aguilera’s most iconic songs. Fittingly, it was the first track she recorded. “Miss You is that big diva moment,” she says. “It's quite an old school ballad. It's very classical. It builds and it gets bigger and bigger and it's very dramatic and it kind of punches you in the face.” That dramatic shift in sound also marks a shift in process. For the first time, Edwards is navigating the studio without the vocal safety net of her Little Mix bandmates. “I think we kind of got to the point where we all had our roles in the band,” she recalls. “It was like my role was the chorus; either leading the chorus or the big ad libs. That was kind of my role for so, so long that I rarely got to sing like a low rich toned verse or a pre or anything like that.” Now, every element - verse, pre-chorus, chorus, ad lib - belongs to her. “I remember just thinking, this is wild because I was singing the verse, the pre, the chorus. I was stacking everything. I thought it's crazy to think that for fourteen years, or however long I was in Little Mix, I never sang a full song.” That autonomy fuels the albums vocal variety. Edwards leans into whatever the song calls for: the polished pop sheen of If He Wanted To He Would, the full-bodied cinematic sweep of Bonnie and Clyde, or the raw intimacy of Same Place, Different View. On the latter, she strips everything back; not just vocally, but emotionally. “I went into it completely different and I wanted the approach to be completely different,” she says. “I didn't want any harmonies necessarily. I didn't want loads of big ad libs. I wanted it to just be a story that I was telling really intimately on the mic. I'm very close on the mic, like normally you have a bit of space. I was so intimate on that mic, just telling the story and I wanted my one voice just delicately going through. I think even that's quite different for me because I'm used to [belts a high note]. So having to be all delicate and beautiful, it was nice to just explore that kind of part of my voice for a change.” There’s no over-singing, no chasing big moments. It’s less about proving something, more about having the space to show it.

Sonically, Edwards pushes far beyond the borders of her established pop terrain. Her debut album is an eclectic mix, effortlessly weaving in threads of country, disco, motown, and soft rock without ever losing its pop core. Rocket Scientist pulses with a sense of nostalgia, while Pushing Up Daisies leans confidently into a distinctly UK-flavoured pop. But it’s Bonnie and Clyde that stands out as one of the album’s most haunting cuts; a theatrical slow-burn inspired by Radiohead’s Creep. “That was the inspo, you've nailed it,” she confirms, when I mention the track’s eerie, compassion-laced tension. The song is inspired by Edwards’ own relationship, and she’s unflinchingly honest about its intensity. “I’m psychotically in love with him,” she says, laughing, and the track plays on that theme with deliberate drama. Rather than opting for a conventional love song, she broadens the emotional scope, subverting the genres usual sweetness. A ghostly soundscape unfurls beneath her haunting vocals, which lean heavily into her upper register before thrashing guitars cascade in. “Radiohead’s Creep and all these different things were kind of inspiration for that haunting-ness,” she explains. “Then at the end when the guitars just come thrashing in, I'm like, 'ah, love this.’” This dynamic approach is the through line of the record. “I think it kind of just happened quite naturally,” she says of the album’s genre-spanning palette. “I think my musical influences somehow just played a part. Even when I was writing lyrics and melodies, they would sometimes come out a bit country or they'd come out a bit more like old school pop-rock kind of feel.” As for how she makes all these sonic shifts feel cohesive, she credits her voice as the glue. “I think because it's one voice throughout the whole album, it ties it together anyway. I think my vocals kind of tie it in, and they all complement each other even though there's ballads and there's like really over the top pop music, because I love pop so much. Big anthemic pop is my favourite kind of music. So with a hint of country and rock and old school, this and that in it, it just kind of boxed up to be like my perfect album.” She tells me she hopes fans connect with the album overall, particularly noting If He Wanted To He Would as a relatable pop-banger “People kind of love that concept and they can resonate with it or have people in their life that does.” Miss You is another pivotal track for Edwards, it is a classic ballad that fans are hungry for. If this is her perfect album, it’s because it doesn’t settle. Edwards doesn’t just flirt with different genres, she fully inhabits them - stitching each influence into a sound that’s rich, unpredictable, and distinctly her own.

Thematically, Perrie is as autobiographical as the title suggests; a raw, reflective journey through the pivotal moments that have shaped Edwards as both a person and artist. Across the album, she chronicles falling in love, enduring heartbreak, the slow unraveling of friendships, and the enduring love forged during her time in Little Mix. “I think I just went into it being an open book,” she says. “I don't think there's anything off limits that I wanted to not talk about in sessions or disclose in sessions.” For Edwards, songwriting isn’t just catharsis, it’s a form of emotional time travel. She speaks of the power music holds to transport you to specific memories, even long after the hurt has healed. “I think that is so powerful,” she says. “I think that is so powerful, and I think with my music, I just wanted to kind of go back and forth of my experiences. What I've been through, where I'm at now, what I went through in the past. I wanted to touch on everything because I felt like that's where I got my inspiration from because it's me. It's self-titled Perrie because it's about my life and it's quite autobiographical.”

Each track carries a different piece of that personal puzzle. Sand Dancer is a heartfelt tribute to her hometown of South Shields and the young girl who once dreamed of becoming a musician. On Rocket Scientist, she unpacks an unhealthy relationship, choosing dignity and self-worth over dysfunction. Same Place, Different View reflects on a relationship rapturously dismantled, with a quiet longing for reconnection. Meanwhile, Goodbye My Friend (possibly a nod to the Spice Girls’ Goodbye) stands as a love letter to her Little Mix sisters, Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock. It’s a track rooted in gratitude, honouring the bond and shared history they’ll always carry.

Still, the vulnerability that runs through the record isn’t without its risks. Has she felt any hesitation in laying her life bare, especially after spending 14 years under public scrutiny? “I think the only thing that I'm ever apprehensive about or nervous about is talking about past experiences that people are like, 'Why is she still going on about this?’” she admits. “Because I went through it and it was a life experience and it built me and it made me who I am now. I went through it and I experienced it.” She’s quick to point out that revisiting the past doesn’t mean being stuck in it. “I think now I'm in a complete different world. I'm in a different head space, I'm in a different phase of my life,” she says. “But again, these things happened and I think they're super relatable and people might not like me to talk about certain things, but I'm like, 'well I'm gonna talk about it anyway.’” There’s no edge to her voice, just clarity, confidence, and a subtle shrug at the court of public opinion. Had she made this album a decade ago, Edwards believes it would have sounded vastly different. Angrier, more chaotic, less measured. “If I wrote this album, I don't know, nine, ten years ago, it would've been a very different album,” she says. “It would've been more Alanis Morissette, a bit more aggressive at the world.”

Any criticism of Edwards for mining her past feels misplaced. Perrie is her debut, her first chance to truly author her own story. She draws a sharp parallel between songwriting and acting, where performers tap into personal memory to bring depth to a role. “When you see actors acting out a scene and they're heartbroken or they're traumatised or they're going through something, it is probably because they've tapped into previous life experiences that kind of encourage the work to come out,” she explains. “That's the same in music. What about people who write about their upbringing and their childhood? Do people say, 'why are we talking about that when you're 32?' No, they don't. They don't even question it.” For Edwards, making this album was not just about telling her story, it was about making peace with it. She cites music as a form of therapy. A place to lay old wounds to rest, honour the joy, and come to terms with the person she’s become. The result is not only a portrait of an artist, but a woman in full possession of her past, present, and future.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s not uncommon to stumble across a clip of Perrie Edwards performing on social media, a testament to the appetite her fans have for her return to the stage. While there are no confirmed tour dates just yet, she hints that something is on the horizon. “Definitely next year hopefully,” she declares. The transition from group member to solo performer has required more than just creative recalibration in the studio. Taking the stage alone for the first time brought a new kind of pressure, one she hadn’t anticipated. “I think knowing that it's all eyes on me [laughs] it's like crazy. Because when you're in a group it's like you know people are there for certain members, and it's like a full show and you're kind of amidst everything. When you're a solo artist, it's like, 'oh crap, it's on me.' If I fuck up, I've, I've ruined it. The whole thing goes down [laughs]. The whole ship is depending on me. I'm the captain.” Her words reflect a real vulnerability; the fear of being exposed without the shared responsibility of her Little Mix bandmates.

The idea of carrying an entire performance was daunting. “I didn't know how I could hold a stage,” she recalls. Since launching her solo project, she’s tested the waters with a few festival appearances and a more intimate show to celebrate her album release. The nerves, she says, didn’t last long. “I think just any excuse to be on stage, I'm there, like sign me up. I just love it so much. There's nothing that compares to that feeling of adrenaline.” The stage, it seems, remains a place where she feels most alive.

I ask whether she had to retrain her voice for the demands of a full solo set, she doesn’t hesitate. “You are absolutely right,” she responds. “Obviously Forget About Us was my first single, it was my first like debut. I remember thinking like, 'how the hell am I supposed to sing this song live?' And obviously it's [written by] Ed Sheeran, and Ed Sheeran's quite rappy-singy-quick. Fits a million lyrics into one little section, kind of song. I was thinking, I don't think I can sing this live. It's too quick. I just remember thinking 'Jesus.' But now I've sung it so many times that I just fall into the pocket of it and the flow of it and it's fine. The breath work, it was definitely a big difference. Because you're gearing yourself up from one little section of three lines sometimes. And then now it's just everything. So it was a lot, but it was exciting and it was fun.” 

That mix of apprehension and exhilaration seems to define this chapter of her artistry. Edwards is still finding her rhythm, but she's doing so with growing confidence and a clear desire to prove that she's not just capable, she's ready. Her debut self-titled body of work is a chronicle of all her lived experiences, a reckoning with the path that led her here today.

MILKY EXCLUSIVE COVER STORY ©

Look One

Perrie wears Lavish Alice. Shoes, Gucci.

Photography: Lucy and Lydia Connell - The Twins Shot This.

Styling: Aaron Carlo

Styling Assistant: Abby Adekugbe

Makeup: Gemma Olumuyiwa Wheatcroft

Hair: Aaron Carlo

Look Two

Photography: Lucy and Lydia Connell - The Twins Shot This.

Styling: Aaron Carlo

Styling Assistant: Abby Adekugbe

Makeup: Gemma Olumuyiwa Wheatcroft

Hair: Aaron Carlo

Look Three

Photography: Alex Kibble

Styling: Jordan Kelsey

Hair: Aaron Carlo

Makeup: Cassie Lomas

Perrie is out now.