Yungblud and Willow release long-awaited collaborative single and video – watch

Yungblud has released his long-teased Willow collaboration ‘Memories’, and dropped a powerful accompanying video – you can see it below.

The pair were pictured together in the studio in London last December, shortly after the Doncaster rabble-rouser had been spotted backstage at Willow’s headline show at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. They had previously been in public conversation on Yungblud’s BBC podcast in July last year, discussing their shared struggles with their mental health.

Now, the fruits of their shared labour have surfaced, in the form of an emotive collaboration that, aptly, is in the pop-punk style that has informed Yungblud’s career to date and that was at the core of Willow’s 2021 album ‘Lately I Feel Everything’. It follows ‘The Funeral’, Yungblud’s last single, that saw him hook up with Ozzy Osbourne for a chaotic video. Both that and ‘Memories’ are likely to appear on his forthcoming third album, which he confirmed will arrive in the autumn when he spoke to James Corden on ‘The Late Late Show’ back in March.

During Willow’s appearance on ‘The Yungblud Podcast‘ last July, she opened up about her past battles with anxiety, and her struggle to overcome fear. “For so long, I had a lot of fear,” said Willow. “I felt extremely unsafe in my music career in the past and that feeling of insecurity or unsafety [sic], like I didn’t feel protected, which went really deep.”

The daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow recalled the difficulties she encountered launching her pop career at a young age. “I kinda had to come back from the music industry and now I’m kinda going back in,” she explained. “It’s interesting because all of those memories and emotions have just been resurfacing.”

‘Memories’ is the first new music from Willow since last month’s collaboration with PinkPantheress. ‘Where You Are’ is another track indebted to pop-punk, sampling ‘Never Let This Go’ from Paramore’s 2005 debut album, ‘All We Know Is Falling’. Hayley Williams, the band’s frontwoman, is credited as a co-writer on the song; she recently launched a new podcast that goes deep on the nature of emo in music.