Rachel Mintz Tackles Social Media With Single “Silly Weight”

Rachel Mintz is the kind of genre-fluid mind that could easily become an algorithm’s dream, even if the LA-based artist has some doubts on her latest single about social media as a whole, “Silly Weight.”

Growing up in Miami with a musical family, she performed with one of the world’s most celebrated children’s choirs before pivoting to gritty rock and punk bands in her teens and eventually relocating to California. “Being raised in Miami, I never quite felt I fit in,” Mintz adds in retrospect. “My upbringing influenced my rebellion, which may have led to the artistic freedom expressed in my music. My teenage girlfriends and I listened to a lot of hip hop growing up, which cemented my love of rhythm.”

Working with Grammy Award-winning engineer and co-producer Ian Cross (Usher, Janet Jackson, Lauryn Hill, Gwen Stefani), Mintz finally found her own voice on her 2019 debut Shed A Tear, which found her gleefully weaving between dream pop, darkwave, and baroque pop to praise from The Big Takeover and Pure Grain Audio. Building on top of Tear’s success, Mintz is readying a new EP for 2021 heralded by “Silly Weight,” a Bangles-reminiscent synth pop blast of a lead single questioning social media and technology’s grip on daily life.

“I would regularly lament social media culture with [producer DS Blade]… which oddly enough, is how we were introduced,” recalls Mintz. “There are things, especially now, that we focus way too much of our energy on. Things like social media and consumerism that are ultimately meaningless and don’t serve us at all. I am just as guilty of this as the next person. In a way, I wanted the lyrics to be a reflection of our conversations.”