The sophomore album from Anna Shoemaker, ‘Someone Should Stop Her’ was just released and is a deeply personal album that takes the listener on a journey through heartbreak from grief and self-discovery, to the spark of new beginnings. Tracks like “Real Life” reflect her embrace of liberation, while “Game of Thrones” is a reflection of young adulthood that includes doom scrolling on social media, struggling with comparison and keeping up with others. Shoemaker stated, “we’re all comparing ourselves to each other on Instagram, it feels like ‘Game of Thrones’. It feels like, we’re all like who has the coolest thrifted fit, who has the coolest friends, who’s living the best brat summer. It’s so cringe and weird to me and I think that this song was combating that.” The album’s origins can be pinpointed to the songs “Holly” and “miniskirt”, that Shoemaker noted, “those two in my mind are like sisters. We wrote mini skirt and then I think we wrote Holly the next week. Those two were our little breakthrough moments where we were like, oh this is this is kind of a cool sound, this natural indie thing with acoustic guitars and we really really caught a stride.” The Philadelphia-born burst onto the scene with her viral SoundCloud mashup “No Lie, Bitch Don’t Kill My Cocoa Butter Kisses,” leading to a record deal with +1 Records. Her 2018 debut EP East Side and 2022 album Everything is Fine (I’m Only on Fire) established her as a voice for heartbreak and self-discovery.
Anna Shoemaker spoke with B-Sides host Pete Mar about her new album, ‘Someone Should Stop Her’, which tackles relationship issues, heartbreak and societal pressures of social media. She spoke about how Taylor Swift was an early influence on her songwriting, AIM and more.
