Latest news with #EuroCountry
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
CMAT shouts ‘Free Palestine' and wades into Glastonbury crowd during lively set
Irish singer CMAT chanted 'Free Palestine' and waded into the Pyramid Stage crowd, who were dancing in the midday heat, during her Glastonbury Festival set. The musician, real name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, 29, played songs from her back catalogue as well as new singles, including Take A Sexy Picture Of Me, from her forthcoming third studio album Euro-Country. Plenty of festivalgoers could be seen doing the viral dance to the song, which has taken social media by storm in recent months. Kicking off her set with Have Fun! the singer, who wore an all-purple ensemble with white boots, sang while lying flat on the floor before getting to her feet and shouting: 'Glasto!' The musician, who blends pop and rock with folk and country influences, performed from her back catalogue, receiving rapturous applause while singing hits including I Don't Really Care For You. The singer also encouraged fans to dance along to the 'Dunboyne County Meath two-step' while singing I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby! 'I think we might be about to break a personal record for the very sexy CMAT band,' she told crowds. 'We've never attempted it (the dance) with this many people so I'm a little scared,' the singer added. Introducing herself, she told crowds: 'My name is CMAT and I'm literally just a young one from Dunboyne/Dublin, depending who you ask.' 'This is the scariest moment of my life but it will probably singlehandedly be the best and most amazing thing I'll ever do,' she added. Towards the end of her set, she waded into the crowd to sing her popular song Stay For Something and chanted 'Free Palestine' in reference to the ongoing war in Gaza. CMAT released her debut album, If My Wife New I'd Be Dead, in 2022, and followed it up with Mercury Prize-nominated Crazymad, For Me in 2023. Her third studio album is set for release on August 29.
The Guardian
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
CMAT at Glastonbury review – a preposterously fun pop star who'll surely be massive
CMAT runs on to the Pyramid stage, immediately pretends to faint, then delivers the first verse of her opening song lying face down. It's an intriguing beginning to the kind of Glastonbury set that captures an artist at what seems to be a tipping point of their career, that carries with it the distinct sense that they may be on the verge of becoming absolutely huge. The crowd she draws is vast and they respond to the handful of tracks already released from her forthcoming third album Euro-Country as if they're her greatest hits. The celebrity-endorsed TikTok dance craze spawned by recent single Take a Sexy Picture of Me has clearly had some role to play in boosting her popularity – its arrival mid-set prompts a spontaneous crowd sing along; someone in the audience is so excited they let a smoke flare off midway through; the big screens reveal that even a security guard standing by the loos at the side of the stage is pumping his fist – but it can't account for the rapturous reaction afforded her entire set. What does is that CMAT is a fantastic pop star. It's not merely that she's smart, funny, gobbily outspoken, and looks fantastic – today she's clad in huge earrings in the shape of the euro symboland blue plastic dress that she removes to reveal a matching blue leotard, while mocking the fat-shaming comments posted about her on social media. It's not just that she is blessed with both a potent, octave-leaping voice and a surfeit of superb, hook-laden songs that split the difference between country mid-70s Fleetwood Mac and come equipped with sharp, witty lyrics. It's that she's a quite spectacularly brilliant live performer. She alternates between stage moves that very much hail from the Dance Like No One's Watching school of abandon, and choreographed routines with her band members: at the climax of one, she rips off her male band members' skirts in a manner reminiscent of Bucks Fizz's famous Eurovision moment. She announces herself as possessed of 'middle child syndrome, an amazing arse and the best Irish country rock'n'roll band in the world' and beckons for applause whenever she mentions her own name – when the crowd start chanting her name of their own accord, she responds by bending over and wiggling her bum at them. When she successfully encourages the audience to engage in synchronised dance moves to I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!, she looks quite startled at what a crowd this size enthusiastically dancing in unison looks like. It's all incredibly engaging and preposterously good fun, and it reaches a climax with Stay for Something She runs to the barrier at the front stage, climbs on top of it, hugs a fan, strikes a series of coquettish poses, then – to the visible horror of the security guard accompanying her – motions for the crowd to part, runs into their centre and delivers the final chorus in the middle of the audience. Back on stage, she leads a chant of 'free Palestine' and she's gone – it really doesn't seem inconceivable that she could be headlining the next time she returns.
BreakingNews.ie
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
CMAT shouts ‘Free Palestine' and wades into Glastonbury crowd during lively set
Irish singer CMAT chanted 'Free Palestine' and waded into the Pyramid Stage crowd, who were dancing in the midday heat, during her Glastonbury Festival set. The musician, real name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, 29, played songs from her back catalogue as well as new singles, including Take A Sexy Picture Of Me, from her forthcoming third studio album Euro-Country. Advertisement Plenty of festivalgoers could be seen doing the viral dance to the song, which has taken social media by storm in recent months. CMAT performing on the Pyramid Stage during Glastonbury Festival (Yui Mok/PA) Kicking off her set with Have Fun! the singer, who wore an all-purple ensemble with white boots, sang while lying flat on the floor before getting to her feet and shouting: 'Glasto!' The musician, who blends pop and rock with folk and country influences, performed from her back catalogue, receiving rapturous applause while singing hits including I Don't Really Care For You. The singer also encouraged fans to dance along to the 'Dunboyne County Meath two-step' while singing I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby! Advertisement 'I think we might be about to break a personal record for the very sexy CMAT band,' she told crowds. 'We've never attempted it (the dance) with this many people so I'm a little scared,' the singer added. Introducing herself, she told crowds: 'My name is CMAT and I'm literally just a young one from Dunboyne/Dublin, depending who you ask.' CMAT said performing at Glastonbury was 'the scariest moment of my life' (Yui Mok/PA) 'This is the scariest moment of my life but it will probably singlehandedly be the best and most amazing thing I'll ever do,' she added. Advertisement Towards the end of her set, she waded into the crowd to sing her popular song Stay For Something and chanted 'Free Palestine' in reference to the ongoing war in Gaza. CMAT released her debut album, If My Wife New I'd Be Dead, in 2022, and followed it up with Mercury Prize-nominated Crazymad, For Me in 2023. Her third studio album is set for release on August 29th.
BreakingNews.ie
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Singer CMAT says ‘fake version' of Irish culture is being ‘built up' by English
Country singer CMAT has said a 'fake version' of Irish culture is being 'being built up by Americans and English people and claimed for themselves'. The 29-year-old, whose real name is Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, is part of a number of Irish acts to rise to popularity in recent years alongside the likes of indie rockers Fontaines DC and rap trio Kneecap, which has prompted a surge in interest in Irish culture in the UK and US. Advertisement Speaking to Glamour UK, the Crazymad For Me singer said of the situation: 'I didn't relate to any of it, like, why am I seeing Claddagh rings everywhere? The GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) jerseys? Why is everyone pretending we had this exact same childhood? CMAT on the cover of Glamour UK. Photo: Ruth Ginika Ossai/Glamour UK/PA. 'There's this very romantic vision of Ireland, but I grew up in a place where it's not very fun to grow up. This fake version of our identity was being built up by Americans and English people and claimed for themselves.' The singer is due to release her third album Euro-Country later this year, and says the record features a song about a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend – when the BBC had to switch the comments off due to people body-shaming her – called Take A Sexy Picture Of Me. She told Glamour UK: 'That song is about getting fat-shamed on the internet all the time. I wanted to really dig into commercial attractiveness and how women are pruned into this marketable product until they turn about 27. Advertisement 'I genuinely didn't care that people got so angry that I thought I was sexy, but it forced a lot of 15-year-old girls who love CMAT, who might even be bigger than me, to witness a level of vitriol against a woman's body against her will.' The full interview with CMAT can be read in the May digital issue of Glamour UK which is online now.
BBC News
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
CMAT song inspired by being fat shamed at Radio 1 Big Weekend
Irish country singer CMAT says her new single was written in response to being fat-shamed over her appearance at a festival last her performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Luton last year, the singer-songwriter removed a shirt to reveal a different outfit BBC disabled comments on an Instagram clip of the moment - and CMAT says some of the insults inspired her new track - Take A Sexy Picture Of Me."I was just wearing clothes and everyone was very annoyed at me for that," she tells Radio 1's Jack Saunders. Take A Sexy Picture Of Me, the second single from upcoming album Euro Country, charts the challenges of being a woman in the public eye. It's something the singer, Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, says no longer applies only to celebrities thanks to social media."This happens to everyone all the time," she says."Everyone is constantly being judged on whether or not they're commercially attractive and where they fall within these really weird goal posts."I just was annoyed, and I wanted to write a song about being annoyed about it."The track begins with CMAT singing about trying to wax her legs with sticky tape when she was nine, and how the pressure to be attractive has meant she's "been having a horrible time of late".But the lyrics are contrasted with poppy hooks and the tongue-in-cheek solution of having someone "take a sexy picture". "The thing with this song was, I wanted it to sound joyous and uplifting to sing but also to be a bit of a rallying cry," she says."If we're dealing with a song that's as dark as this, and as grim as this, we have to make it a bit funny." It's not the first time CMAT's been targeted for her the 2024 Brit Awards, she wore a revealing dress and told the BBC: "The backlash was crazy.""I had a lot of people that were very angry that I would do such a thing. "They were horrified, and people were really angry and aggressive in comments, telling me I had to go to the gym," she said at the time."I think [my outfit] caused a stir because it's big and because I'm a size 14 as opposed to a size six." 'Feminine rage in one song' CMAT fan Ada-Mae Tasker tells BBC Newsbeat the the singer's lyrics in her new track "hit home"."It perfectly summed up feminine rage in one song," the 23-year-old from Cornwall says. "Society puts so much pressure on girls especially to look a certain way and I've definitely had my own experiences with that."It's just something you're brought up to think about constantly - your weight, how you look to other people, but you just have to try and be confident enough to block out the noise."With CMAT addressing the issue head on, Ada-Mae's hopeful it will start a discussion."I think it's so amazing for other people who've maybe never thought about how women are perceived by society to hear that song and think about how they see women as well," she says. Talia Burnton says she could really relate to Take A Sexy Picture Of Me when she first heard it on Wednesday. "I really struggle with having people take my photo because I have quite a difficult relationship with my body image," the 17-year-old from London says."Having an artist who's really important to me speaking about an issue so big to me looking back on her teen years, it made me feel really seen." In the song, CMAT sends a message to "party girls dragged out by their ankles", singing: "I'm here if you need me, deep in your afters"."I wanted the song to act as a support group for everyone who goes through this kind of thing," she tells Radio 1. "Because it's completely outside of my control." Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
