YouTuber Adelaine Morin’s track “SPF 50” — the first single on her EP “Golden Hour,” which was released on Oct. 16 — reminds women of their worth in a relationship.
The Toronto artist has been active on social media and YouTube ever since she was 13 years old. The 22-year-old has currently amassed over 5.5 million followers across all platforms and lives part-time in Los Angeles.
Morin was thinking of fun song titles when she suddenly thought of “SPF 50” and her other single “Ctrl Alt Del.”
She said, “I posted that as my caption in one of my Instagram photos and my writer responded to me saying that’d make a sick song title! I love the color yellow [and] bright and fun titles so it fit perfectly into the EP!”
The singer mentioned that she was moved emotionally after hearing the final version of “SPF 50.” She said that once you’ve looked at something too long, it starts to become blurry. That’s how she felt in the past when working on her music.
“I’d work on it for too long, to the point where I couldn’t tell what’s good or needed to be fixed anymore. There was one moment in my car when I [hadn’t] listened to my songs in a while and started crying,” Morin confessed. “I got a new appreciation for it. Going through a breakup, you go through different stages: denial, depression, anger, acceptance, recovery and over the breakup. The stages don’t go in order and sometimes you can hop back and forward from one stage to the next.”
Her favorite lyrics are “Now I see my worth, learned from all the hurt, I miss what we had, but I’m changed ‘cause I loved you and that’s too bad.”
“It’s the final words in my song and it shows so much character development within myself and my stage of denial,” she explained.
Morin believes her song connects with the current generation because even though we’re one of the most connected generations thanks to social media, we’re also the most disconnected in terms of socializing face to face.
“Social media has huge effects on preteens and teens growing up, figuring out who they are. I recommend everyone to watch ‘The Social Dilemma’ on Netflix because it explains the pros and cons of growing up in a social media society,” Morin said.
She continued, “My songs are almost like my diary. They’re raw, honest, they show the good, the bad, the ugly, everything. I hope girls who feel like they can’t talk to their friends about what they’re going through connect to my songs and feel like they’re not alone.”
The music video for “SPF 50” was originally inspired by Dua Lipa’s “New Rules” music video. Morin loved the story of a female lead going through a breakup, having her girlfriends help her out of it and ending with the female lead helping her friend out of a breakup, returning the support she received.
“My director and I put a little twist on ‘SPF 50’ by having both me and my girlfriend help each other get through our breakups and in the end dump the toxic ex,” she said.
The creative process of a music video is Morin’s favorite part of creating music. She always starts off with a Pinterest board or a PowerPoint presentation to send to her director.
“They send me one back, we come up with a script, shots we want and inspo, and execute it on filming day! I like to be very involved and make sure the video is perfect down to the fun details like Blue (her dog sidekick) making an appearance,” the artist explained.
For the past couple years, Morin picked yellow as her signature color. In line with her personal aesthetic, her visuals represent all things fun, bright and colorful. “Think sunflowers, the sun and SPF 50. The brand definitely comes across a lot in the full six-song EP!”
Morin said that “SPF 50” expresses her fierce persona that comes out once in a while when her girlfriends tell her about how badly their boyfriends are treating them but constantly get back together with them.
The singer said, “They deserve better. We need to be reminded of our worth sometimes, ladies! I wanted the ‘SPF 50’ visuals to be very theatrical and push my limits with the dancing. We had three rehearsals before filming day and I’m so happy with how it turned out.”
Morin wants her fans to look at themselves in the mirror and tell themselves they’re beautiful, give themselves a compliment, say how amazing their smile is, whether they believe it or not. “Because the more you say something, the more you start to believe it. I always want my fans to feel empowered,” she explained.
Morin revealed that she never intended to be a part of the music industry. The artist’s first song she’s ever written, recorded and produced promoted her Tarte eye and cheek palette, “Yellow.”
“I’ve just seen my influencer friends, such as Patrick Starrr, posting music videos to promote their makeup collaborations,” she said. “Since doing my first song, ‘Yellow,’ I fell in love with the creation process of writing, putting your thoughts and feelings into music, recording, practicing vocals, producing, putting an artistic vision board together for the visuals, music videos [and] glam.”
After falling in love with the whole process, Morin went to a couple sessions to get more experience, but the biggest project she has worked on is her EP “Golden Hours” that launched on Oct. 16.
Starting out as a beauty influencer, Morin was thrilled to perform in her Adelaine x Tarte collaboration, which was one of her biggest projects.
“I created the palette’s colors, made sure they swatched perfectly, created the packaging, flew to New York for meetings, created PowerPoints for launch plans, shipped out PR packages, recorded a song, filmed a music video, rehearsed for a live performance, performed at my launch party and had a meet and greet where I met over 300 fans at an Ulta in LA!”
Morin’s piece of advice for aspiring singers is to have contracts before they start working with other people in the entertainment industry.
“Have good lawyers look over your contracts (It’s worth the money) and practice makes perfect. The more songs you put out, the better you’ll be! If you have passion in anything you do, you are guaranteed to succeed.”
Contact Ron Rocky Coloma at rcoloma ‘at’ stanford.edu.