Diana Gordon’s Rollin is one of the best new songs of the year. The grunge-tinged, trap cut has her at her most fierce, lacing a potent chorus with forceful vocals. It’s the shining moment on an EP of many - one that shows yet another dimension to Gordon. Since 2016, Gordon has been carving an exciting new musical identity under her real name but her diverse history as a musician is impressive.
One of the most recognisable dance/pop songs from the early 2010s is Dirty Talk. The pulsating club anthem still howls out of clubs across the world. At the time, it went to number one on the US Dance charts and also topped the charts here in Australia. The artist was Wynter Gordon AKA. Diana Gordon’s first pop moniker.
As Wynter, Gordon carved a name for herself as a sharp writer who bridged club and pop music with ease. Her debut album that arrived in 2011 With The Music I Die was a vibrant collection featuring bombastic moments like Buy My Love and ratchet party anthems like Til Death. The album found the biggest audience in Australia and local duo PNAU even produced one of the tracks Still Gettin’ Younger.
Following the album, Gordon featured on tracks by Tyga, Steve Aoki and Major Lazer, notably featuring on the latter’s game-changing album Free The Universe. She released one more EP as Wynter 2012’s Human Condition before forming a group. In 2014, she embarked on a tour with The Righteous Young, her band, but nothing more eventuated. Gordon went back to releasing music without the group and released a few more singles under the moniker before seemingly going quiet.
She was known as a fierce artist and performer but behind the scenes Gordon had cut her teeth as a notable writer. In 2004, she wrote the opening tack to Mary J. Blige’s record The Breakthrough. A few years later, she penned songs for Diddy’s girl group Danity Kane on their album Welcome To The Dollhouse which hit number one in the US. She followed that up with a number of co-writes for Jennifer Lopez’s Love?
“I just got a fat check from Beyonce,” she sings in her debut single as Diana The Legend Of. She’s not lying either. In 2016, her biggest writing break came. As she was working on music for her own Diana Gordon project, she landed three songs on Beyonce’s seminal Lemonade record. She wrote and produced Sorry while co-writing tracks Daddy Lessons and Don’t Hurt Yourself. Yep, that means she had a hand in that, “Becky with the good hair,” line.
“Beyoncé is a movement in herself. I was beyond proud to have had that experience with her,” she told Harper's Bazaar about the experience.
“Our experience, I have nothing but beautiful things.”
The writing has continued for Gordon as she works on her own project. Gordon started working with Mark Ronson, who is a “great friend,” and eventually co-wrote Silk City’s Dua Lipa-featuring hit Electricity which won a Grammy.
Gordon’s current focus looks to be her own solo work which she’s been steadily dropping for the last four years. The project has been genre-diverse but most of it is driven by a raw presence that sees her dipping into rock stylings alongside hip-hop, R&B, soul and pop. 2016 gave us her EP Pure, centered around a collection of personal songs like the intimate, emotional Too Young and the isolated Moment To Myself. Wolverine, a woozy, head-high cut, became the album’s biggest track and is her most streamed song to date.
Since then, her sound has only gotten harder. Last year’s Becoming gave us a trap flex driven by speaker-rattling beats. Then came Rollin. A strangely triumphant song that sounds like Nirvana spent time with Travis Scott. Gordon has labeled 2020 the year of “new-age grunge” and if that’s the case, she’s leading the movement with the new Wasted Youth EP.
Driven by the dark, woozy title track, it’s Gordon’s darkest collection of songs yet made buoyant by sticky melodies and hard-hitting beats. There are no-fucks-given anthems (Hot Grits), songs about moving on (Once My Friend) and to scathing, directed statements (Sad Boys). Gordon is angry but she’s also flexing, creating songs that are simultaneously melancholic and triumphant.
“Oooh Diana she so fly,” she sings in the opening song and she carries that attitude through to the very end. She may have tried a myriad of styles throughout her career but “new-age grunge” feels like the sweet spot for her. It gives her a chance to dig into the grittiest parts of her voice while also showcasing her flawless feel for melody.
