Laura Pergolizzi is an American singer of Italian origin. She is like a collection of uniquenesses: from her unconventional appearance with unchanging curls, sunglasses and a cross-shaped earring, to her unusual songwriting with heartfelt lyrics, powerful vocals, artistic whistling and ukulele accompaniment.
Surely there will be those who won’t reproach me for saying that an article about Laura Pergolizzi is not a suitable topic for a rock music website. After all, she doesn’t fit the generally accepted definition of “rock personality” at all, because if you believe Wikipedia’s genre definition, LP (Laura Pergolizzi for short) is pop, pop rock and indie pop (a more melodic and not as abrasive subgenre as indie rock). And some people consider her music to be outright pop.
But here I would venture to argue. All these genre definitions aren’t that important when there’s an emotional and semantic component: LP is a singer, worthy to be considered a real rocker.
Why? Yes, because the kind of emotion that LP’s music is imbued with, the chippy pop can’t carry! And I think you will agree that the rock is not only the sound, but equally the emotion that is carried through the lyrics and the singer’s voice.
Besides, LP started as a real rock’n’roll band – 250 concerts a year, endless traveling with the band through small towns in a shabby van and spending nights in cheap hotels (often all together in one room).
Then the producers tried to squeeze her songs into the format in order to reach as many listeners as possible. Luckily, they weren’t very good at it and today we have what we have – an LP in her sincere image with heartfelt lyrics that many people are already quite fond of.
Laura Pergolizzi’s start of the LP journey
Laura Pergolizzi, or rather her extraordinary appearance, is often confusing at first sight – it is not always clear whether you are looking at a man or a woman. LP owes such a striking appearance to her parents: her mother is Neapolitan and her father is half Sicilian, half Irish.
But when you hear her powerful, deep songs, it immediately becomes clear: Laura Pergolizzi is a woman from shortened jeans-boyfriends to the last curl (about orientation we will talk separately), though with a certain admixture of a punk girl.
Laura Pergolizzi’s biography begins in Huntington, New York, where she was born in the spring of 1981.
The next 15 years of her life are rather poorly covered in the media – the LP hardly talks about this period in numerous interviews. Except that she once mentioned that as a child she was terribly ashamed of her voice and preferred to sing while the lawnmower or vacuum cleaner was on so that no one could hear her.
It was not until 1996 that events began to happen that radically changed the life of the singer-to-be.
After graduating from high school, Laura Pergolizzi moves to the capital of her native state. Here begins the LP biography as a singer-songwriter: she gathers her own band called Lionfish, with which she starts giving concerts, performing the repertoire of her own composition.
At the same time Laura Pergolizzi for the first time began to use a pseudonym – LP, although this nickname stuck to her in the school summer camp.
Her first successes, or still a long way to popularity.
In 98 she was noticed by David Lowery from the band Cracker. He was so impressed by Laura’s voice that he invited her to participate in the recording of his band’s album. Later he also became the producer of the debut LP “Heart-Shaped Scar” (2001).
Laura Pergolizzi’s further biography was marked by the release of another album – in 2004 “Suburban Sprawl & Alcogol” (I recommend listening to the supporters of the opinion that LP is pop), which was the result of collaboration with Linda Perry from the band 4 Non Blondes.
Around the same time, Laura Pergolizzi received as a gift from a friend a cross earring that Madonna had given him during the filming of one of her videos. Laura Pergolizzi has not parted with it for a single day since. At the same time she claims that this cross does not have any religious meaning – it is just her favorite earring.
Laura Pergolizzi’s first albums did not bring her fame, despite the fairly warm reception from music critics and a major tour to support Suburban Sprawl & Alcogol. There was still a long way to go.
A period of grounding in the music scene
2010 was the beginning of a new era in LP’s biography – she moved to Los Angeles. It is in this city that Laura Pergolizzi’s active musical activity begins.
In November she writes the song “Cheers (Drink to That)” together with Rihanna. Later she collaborates with Christina Aguilera, Backstreet Boys, The Veronicas and Cher.
But collaborations with pop stars LP has always seen as an additional option to her work. The best songs, with deep personal undertones, she always kept for herself.
In 2012, LP’s creative biography is marked by a breakthrough: music lovers finally appreciated the track “Into the Wild” released as a single, which would later be included in her 3rd album.
Laura Pergolizzi began to use artistic whistling in her songs after this song. In the studio, preparing to perform “Into the Wild,” the LP, out of habit, whistled the tune. The producer and director liked the sound so much that they decided to record it. Since then, almost no Laura Pergolizzi performance is without whistling.
In 2014, a full-length LP, Forever for Now, was released. Its release was preceded by two singles – “Night Like This” (March 2014) and “Someday” (June 2014).
The album “Forever for Now” was praised by music critics. Thus, the LP’s official Wikipedia page says that Stephen Thomas Irlevine in his review gave the record five stars. And American Songwriter’s magazine noted that LP songs can take the leading place in primetime of any radio station.
Finally a well-deserved worldwide fame
This period in LP’s biography began with the release of their fourth album, Lost On You, in 2016.
The first single “Muddy Waters” from the then unrecorded LP “Lost On You” was released in September 2015, and the following summer it was played in the finale of one of the episodes of the popular series “Orange Is the New Black” (“Orange Is the New Black” – in the original).
But the album’s key track is Laura Pergolizzi’s song “Lost On You,” which gave it its title. She first performed it at the Coca Cola Summer Festival 2016 in Rome. As a result, the song reached the top of the charts of most European radio stations in record time.
And no wonder, because “Lost On You” is a deeply frank track about Laura Pergolizzi’s personal life. In it she literally portrayed her own love tragedy.
Laura Pergolizzi’s song “Lost On You” is dedicated to the singer’s close friend Tamzin Brown, whose relationship ended in failure. This fact takes on a special meaning when you learn that Laura Pergolizzi is a lesbian. The LP doesn’t hide that fact, though.
She claims that her parents have always been lenient about their daughter’s every “eccentricity”. True, Laura was fully aware of her sexual orientation and told everyone about it only after the death of her mother. Her father only recently took this seriously, as he had always preferred to think of her daughter’s confession as just a teenage hobby.
The literal translation of “Lost On You” sounds something like “Wasted on You” or “Lost in You”. True, in this form, the phrase taken out of context doesn’t carry the semantic load that it’s meant to carry.
But if we turn to the text of the song, it becomes clearer what meaning Laura Pergolizzi put into this phrase. The key vector of the song is the question addressed to Laura’s former girlfriend (played by the model Laura Hanson Sims in the video): “…all those things I wasted on you [time? nerves? feelings?], tell me – was it all for nothing?”
It turns out that the point of “Lost On You” isn’t about trivial worries about lost love, but about trying to figure out if that relationship left any mark on the LP’s ex-girlfriend’s soul. In addition, from the last frames of the clip, in which Laura kisses her new girlfriend Lauren Ruth Ward, it is clear that life goes on for her, despite the still fresh image of her former lover in her memory.
By the way, in December 2016, Lauren (she is also a pretty good singer) released a music video for her song “Make Love To Myself”, which also plays on the emotional lesbian story, and the LP appears in the finale, which is quite symbolic.
But Laura Pergolizzi does not lag behind her new lover – at the beginning of 2017 she again pleased her fans with “tasty” novelties with the same touch of her intimate experiences. On January 26 two videos premiered at once – for the tracks LP “Other People” (the prequel to the “Lost On You” video) and “Tightrope”, with Lauren Ruth Ward in the leading role (appearing in each other’s videos for them, it seems, is becoming a good tradition).
And in the middle of the summer, the video “When we’re high” was released, in which the usual lesbian theme abounds. All the videos are thematically connected to each other – each of them, like chapters in a novel, reveals new details of the plot of LP’s personal life.
By the way, this summer (in July) Laura and Lauren got engaged in Paris, where they were part of the LP’s triumphant tour of Europe. According to them very soon they will officially become wife and wife.
To sum up, I dare to express the opinion that in the near future Laura Pergolizzi’s creativity, by the level of her contribution to the development of modern music, will start to be ranked on a par with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison (one of the LP idols) and other great musicians/performers revered by fans from all over the world.
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