Gracie Abrams

Gracie Madigan Abrams (born September 7, 1999, Los Angeles, California) is an American singer-songwriter known for confessional indie-pop and folk-pop that draws on personal experience with a rare combination of emotional directness and self-aware wit.^[1]

She grew up in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, the daughter of filmmaker J.J. Abrams (known for Lost, the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and the Mission: Impossible franchise) and film and television producer Katie McGrath. She attended The Archer School for Girls in West Los Angeles and later enrolled at Barnard College in New York City to study international relations, leaving after her first year to pursue music full-time.^[1]

Abrams began writing songs at age eight, originally as a journaling practice. Her famous father's world has followed her career, though she has spoken directly about keeping her parents entirely separate from every professional conversation, letting the work speak for itself. She has cited Taylor Swift, Joni Mitchell, Phoebe Bridgers, Elliott Smith, Kate Bush, and Lana Del Rey among her core influences.^[1]

She signed with Interscope Records in 2019 and released her debut single "Mean It" that same year. Her debut EP Minor followed in 2020, with a second EP, This Is What It Feels Like, arriving in 2021. She opened for Olivia Rodrigo's Sour Tour in 2022 before releasing her debut album Good Riddance in February 2023, which earned her a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.^[1]

The minor EP (July 14, 2020) generated an outsized cultural ripple despite its modest seven-track runtime. Recorded largely in a single intense week with Blake Slatkin and released during the COVID-19 pandemic, the project reached Olivia Rodrigo, who publicly credited it as the direct inspiration for writing "drivers license." Rodrigo sent Abrams a direct message on Instagram calling minor "absolutely amazing" and describing Abrams as one of her favourite artists. Rodrigo's subsequent breakout with "drivers license" cemented minor's place as a quiet catalyst for the wave of confessional pop that followed in the early 2020s.^[2]

The seven tracks were recorded in a single concentrated week with producer Blake Slatkin in early 2020, just before COVID-19 lockdowns made that kind of session impossible.^[3] The record originally had a release date of June 16, 2020, which Abrams pushed back out of respect for the Black Lives Matter movement at the height of its visibility.^[3] In interviews about the EP, Abrams described writing most intensely from a place of emotional isolation, calling the experience in songs like "Friend" a one-sided situation where the pain was felt most acutely internally but remained invisible to the person on the other side.^[4] That commitment to radical honesty about where she actually stood, rather than where she should be, would become a defining thread in all her subsequent work.

This Is What It Feels Like and the Turn Inward

Released on November 12, 2021 through Interscope Records, her second EP This Is What It Feels Like marked a significant shift from the relationship-focused material of Minor. The twelve-track project was co-produced by Aaron Dessner, Joel Little, and Blake Slatkin, and written largely during COVID-19 isolation. Abrams described it as a time capsule in song-form and a home to all the different stages of her mental health recovery over the previous year.^[5]

Not every track on the EP turned away from relationship themes entirely. The opener "Feels Like" was written specifically for her close friend Audrey Hobert, celebrating a platonic bond over a romantic one. Abrams described writing it as a relief, a break from processing breakups in song, noting that honoring her friendship felt just as consuming and valid as any romantic subject.^[4] Hobert would later become a co-writer on Abrams' second studio album, The Secret of Us, making "Feels Like" an early chapter in a creative friendship that extended well beyond a single song.

Where her debut had processed heartbreak and romantic disillusionment, this EP turned inward. Songs addressed intrusive thoughts, future anxiety, and the difficulty of asking for help. In an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music, she described the closing track "Alright" as capturing a period when darker, scarier thoughts had become so routine they felt almost casual, and noted that the production reflected the way her brain was operating at the time.^[6]

Maine holds particular personal significance: her mother's family is from the state, and Abrams has described it as her favorite place in the world, somewhere she schedules deliberately to protect her mental health. Before going to Long Pond for the This Is What It Feels Like sessions, she spent a restorative week in Maine that broke an eighteen-month creative block accumulated during pandemic isolation. The four Aaron Dessner collaborations on the EP, including "Augusta," "Rockland," and "Camden," were all named for Maine towns in a practice that began on the first day of sessions and stuck through the entire recording week.^[5]

Abrams manages OCD and re-entered therapy in late 2020 during the pandemic, a period she has credited with giving her enough of a grasp on herself to advocate for her own needs. This renewed self-awareness shaped the inward-looking quality of the EP, with feelings of stasis, lostness, and the desire for radical change embedded in the biographical moment.^[5]

Critics recognized the EP as a meaningful step forward. Stereogum described the sound as expensive-sounding bedroom pop, noting that Abrams had aligned herself with a broader professionalization of the genre. NME drew comparisons to Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift’s Folklore, and the EP charted at number 14 on the US Heatseekers Albums chart. Abrams said that releasing it felt like closure, and that she was beginning to look for the light a bit more than she ever had before.^[5][2]

Good Riddance and the Shift Toward Accountability

Good Riddance, released February 24, 2023, was recorded across approximately 25 non-consecutive days at Long Pond Studio, Aaron Dessner's facility in Hudson Valley, New York. The sessions unfolded in an unusual rhythm: Abrams would write for long unbroken stretches, then step outside to walk, cook, or sleep before returning the next day.^[7]

The album was shaped by the aftermath of a long-term relationship that had occupied most of her late teenage years and early twenties. Rather than using that experience as fuel for blame, Abrams set herself a more demanding creative challenge. She has described a deliberate shift in her songwriting philosophy, moving away from a habit of externalizing responsibility and toward something more honest about her own role in what had not worked.^[8] Dessner reinforced this tendency, encouraging her to hold space for brutal honesty even when the material was still raw.^[7]

The result was an album that NME described as a deeply intimate portrait of growth, awarding it four out of five stars, while Rolling Stone praised the way Abrams delivers emotionally seething observations in a near-whisper, noting that her soft-spoken melodies are nonetheless steeped in precision.^[9][10]

Her second studio album, The Secret of Us (June 2024, Interscope), marked a significant step forward in both sound and scale. Rolling Stone praised it as a proper showcase of her songwriting that sharpens earlier tendencies into something more catchy, melodic, and bubbly.^[11] NME called it a move into a more anthemic sound that sounds remarkably Swiftian, ready to be blasted out in larger venues.^[12] The album debuted at #2 on the US Billboard 200 and reached #1 in the UK, Canada, and Australia.^[1]

Opening for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour throughout 2023 and 2024 introduced Abrams to stadium audiences worldwide. A deluxe edition of The Secret of Us released in November 2024 included "That's So True," which became a massive viral hit and her first-ever #1 single, topping charts in more than ten countries and entering Spotify's Billions Club. The Songwriters Hall of Fame named her the 2025 Hal David Starlight Award recipient, an annual honor for young songwriters of exceptional promise. She made her Saturday Night Live debut on December 14, 2024.^[1]

Breakthrough and The Secret of Us

Abrams' second studio album, The Secret of Us (June 21, 2024), marked a decisive commercial and critical breakthrough. Produced primarily by Aaron Dessner of The National, the album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 and reached number one in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and several other countries.^[13] Rolling Stone praised it as a proper showcase of her songwriting that sharpened earlier tendencies into something more melodic and anthemic.^[1]

The record was written partly while Abrams was living with her childhood friend and collaborator Audrey Hobert, and the two wrote most of the album through direct conversation turned song, an unusually intimate creative process that informed the album's confessional directness.^[12]

In 2023 and 2024, Abrams served as the opening act for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour across 49 shows, a high-profile platform that brought her music to stadium-sized audiences and accelerated her rise.^[14] A deluxe edition of The Secret of Us released in October 2024 added the viral hit "That's So True," which became Abrams' first UK number one single and her first track to surpass one billion streams on Spotify.^[13]

At the 2025 Billboard Women in Music ceremony, Abrams was named Songwriter of the Year. Accepting the award, she credited Taylor Swift's influence on her development as a writer, while noting her own commitment to continuing to grow in the craft.^[11]

"us.", her collaboration with Taylor Swift that closes The Secret of Us, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, the first Grammy nomination in her career tied directly to a specific performance rather than artist recognition.^[15]