Artist-to-watch Jo Hill takes us track-by-track through her spirited debut album ‘girlhood.,’ a liberating coming-of-age record of raw passion, inner beauty, and human connection that sees the Cheddar-born, London-based singer/songwriter channeling intimate emotions and experiences into indie pop songs we can sing, dance, and cry to all at the same time.

Stream: “ALL MY GIRLS ARE TOMBOYS” – Jo Hill

That’s the vision, to have an album that feels as uplifting as it feels full of self-doubt, and balancing the duality of that… I want it to feel like you’re opening my diary.

* * *

What comes to mind when we think about “girlhood”?

For British singer/songwriter Jo Hill, ‘girlhood’ isn’t a feminine term or a gendered word, but rather, one filled with a uniquely special depth and weight; as she puts it, it’s both brave and delicate all at once. “Girlhood can be rowdy, it can be boisterous, it can be being sick on the way home, or your friend holding your hand, taking you home,” she smiles. “It’s that caring emotional awareness that you carry growing up, as a girl.”

“And it’s infectious,” she adds. “Anyone can feel it and tap into it.”

That’s why Hill chose ‘girlhood’ as the name of her debut album: In just eight letters, the artist effortlessly captures so much of what her first full-length record is all about, addressing the hopes and heartaches, trials and tribulations of her late teenage years into her early twenties – how she moved from the country to the city in pursuit of a music career, discovered her calling and found her community, signed with (and then got dropped from) a major label, and through it all, had her people by her side, there for her when she needed them the most – just as she’s been there for them when they needed her the most. A seductive, spirited indie pop record of raw passion, inner beauty, and human connection, girlhood. simultaneously aches and inspires, capturing Jo Hill’s coming-of-age through a collection of bold, beautiful melodies and unapologetically honest, witty, and warm lyrics.

At the heart of all 15 tracks is a young artist channeling her intimate, innermost emotions into songs we can sing, dance, and cry to all at the same time.

girlhood. - Jo Hill — girlhood. – Jo Hill

You’re making me a bitch
and I’m not even on my period
Just tryna scratch you
didn’t even think to ask I had

Bury my diamonds and cover my curves
Hide my distractions so I can be heard
Speak from my chest
but you’re reading the words on my shirt

All my girls are tomboys
We’re showing up in convoy
Don’t blame me if I destroy you
I’m just copying your moves
Pull the ceiling down
All my girls are tomboys

Released November 22nd, 2024 via UROK, girlhood. is as vibrant as it is vulnerable, tender and turbulent, uplifting and exhilarating. Arriving just two years since Jo Hill’s debut single “HONEYMOON” introduced the Cheddar-born singer/songwriter to the world, her first LP is an unfiltered, expansive, and definitive mission statement. girlhood. also builds on the buoyant energy and bustling emotions of Hill’s first two EPs Down at the Res (2022) and Cinematic Baby (2023), both released via her former label, Parlophone.

Atwood Magazine previously named Cinematic Baby one of the Best EPs of 2023, calling it a passion-fueled indie pop fever dream and a hard-hitting and deeply vulnerable record of our endless days and sleepless nights. “Euphoric and aching in all the right ways, it’s a catchy and cathartic sonic roller-coaster – and it just may house your favorite new tunes,” we wrote just a year ago. Jo Hill’s dynamic, pop-savvy music is a bold, beautiful cacophony of raw feeling and fervor mixed into one: As uncompromising as they are relentless, Cinematic Baby‘s five songs prove to be an instantly memorable experience, showcasing Hill’s artistic depth, her stylistic range, and her unfiltered, soul-stirring vocal talents.”

Jo Hill Is Ready to Soundtrack the Summer With ‘Cinematic Baby’

:: FEATURE ::

“I feel like it’s more present; it’s where I am now,” Hill tells Atwood Magazine. “I started writing the first song two years ago, and then the last song I wrote, I literally finished it four months ago. It just feels much more present and diaristic, whereas the other ones were written at a period where I was really missing home and interested in this world of the west country and country music and stuff like that.”

“I think I’ve established that those are my roots, but I’ve left there, and I’m in the city, and this is just for every girl in their 20s trying to discover what the hell to do with their lives – and for anyone who’s grown up as a human, each song is about a different emotion, or a different experience tied to that. There’s a depth in the writing and acknowledgement of how things can get shit, but overall there’s an optimistic message. You should leave feeling like a ‘Pow Girl’; like you’ve got this.”

The story of girlhood. starts with Jo Hill parting ways with her record label after being told they didn’t have the resources for her to release a full-length album. “It really knocked me, the whole label thing,” she recounts. “For me, that was a really painful experience. What this whole process has taught me is to detach your self-worth from what a company thinks of you, or how a song is streaming, etc. I’d had this body of work, but the music wasn’t finished, so I essentially then had to streamline everything. My motto was, ‘What song would I take a bullet for?’ and it was probably only half that was on that initial body of work, so that got back to the drawing board.”

Hill was one of the lucky ones, in that she walked away from the label with the right to record and release the songs she already had in progress. While regrouping internally, she was also connecting with friends new and old through nighttime events she called ‘Gatherings,’ which she hosted at a female-owned pub in North London. “I’d invite different female artists along and we’d have these jam nights and fans would come down,” she says. “It was all very acoustic, and they became this fun, cool way of showcasing my music. I noticed that the constant thread and the thing that was getting me through was my girls and this community and the support that you get from platonic love and other artists that I’ve met, like these younger girls that follow my music.”

Jo Hill © Phoebe Fox — Jo Hill and friends © Phoebe Fox

A journey that started in London’s big, posh studios ended up being finished in Hill’s friends’ bedrooms.

By then, her vision had blossomed from making an album “for album’s sake” to highlighting the bits of her world that meant the most – including personal stories pulled from her youth and young adulthood, shared communal moments at those North London gatherings, and, of course, her POW GIRLS.

“A ‘Pow Girl’ is something that I started thinking about when I moved to London three years ago,” she explains. “I’d come from a very sleepy town and a very small town, and I had moved to the big city to follow my dreams, and I dunno what that is for most people, but mine was to become a musician, become a songwriter, become an artist, and I just felt like I was running around all the time like a prangy cowgirl, moving somewhere to follow your dreams but not belonging in that place and kind of running around and falling off the horse all the time.”

“But then the flip side to that is you’re this ka pow pow super girl and you’re doing it, ’cause sometimes I think that’s what life can feel like; it can feel a bit like you have to be a super human sometimes when you’re not feeling great in your head or whatever. And you just have to get through it and do what you need to do. So yeah, it’s kind of a prangy cowgirl.”

Pow Girl very nearly became the title of Hill’s album, yet as the songs themselves grew to be about so much more than just her, the name girlhood. just made more sense.

“It’s what the record is about,” she says. “It’s more rough and ready and exciting, rather than polished. It’s my coming of age – an album about self-discovery and self-doubt and anxiety, but coming of age and growing through all of those things and womanhood. It all just clicked… And now I feel like it’s the truest representation of what I want to say with my first record.”

“I want it to all have the feeling that this is the start of something, and I want it to feel a bit messy,” she adds. “I don’t want it to feel really polished, because I think that’s what girlhood. is, and I think that’s what I’m really conscious of sonically achieving with this record. A lot of the music I’ve released has been really polished, and now there’s some songs on there that are just recorded on an iPhone. I want it to feel like the beginning of something, and to feel like it could have been thought up in my bedroom and finished in bedrooms and stuff like that, because it’s girlhood. and it’s the first chapter. I’ll do my pregnant album one day and maybe that’ll be really polished. That and diaristic, diary-style-writing, kind of stream-of-consciousness, that’s the vision – to have an album that feels as uplifting as it feels filled with self-doubt, balancing the duality of that.”

“I just wanted it to feel like you’re opening my diary, opening my year 10 diary to now, and that that’s been formed into an album. Whether that’s my first room experience or if that’s me talking to my brother who’s been struggling with depression, or if that’s talking to my frustration of being a woman and periods and stuff like that, that’s what I wanted it to feel and sound like.”

As vulnerable as girlhood.‘s lyrics may be, the journey from album opener “POW GIRL” to closer “JUST AS STRONG” is as intimate as it is universal – its songs exploring everything from friendship (“ALL MY GIRLS ARE TOMBOYS,” “Outlaw”) and puberty (“RUDE AWAKENING”) to mental health (“BIG BOYS CRY TOO”), inner strength (“JUST AS STRONG,” “SUPERMARKET SUSHI,” “VOLCANO”), loss and change (“WHERE DID ELLA GO?”).

Atwood Magazine previously praised album single “ALL MY GIRLS ARE TOMBOYS” as a ray of soaring, seductive, and spellbinding energy: “Hill comes to life in an uplifting, inspiring outpouring of love channeled into three minutes of unbridled, spirited indie pop passion. It’s a feminist anthem, a f*-you to the patriarchy, and an ode to the amazing women in her world – and one can’t help but play this cinematic celebration on repeat.”

**Hill candidly describes girlhood. as raw, diaristic, and coming-of-age.**

“It’s been a liberating period, and this record as a product of that period,” Hill beams. “Girlhood is so important to me, as an artist and as me as Jo, I really value everything that women offer, female friendships, and the honesty and the bravery of it. I remember once someone saying ‘girlhood is the ferocious commitment to being as honest and open as possible.’ When you’re with your friends, you just open up and you go through everything, and you try on emotions and lotions together… You’re kind of trying on these things in a really beautiful way.”

“That’s kind of what the overall messaging is, to explore these emotions and wear them and sing about them and try them on, because some of them are really hard. It is really important, and I’ve just noticed the community around me, that’s been growing out of these gatherings and stuff, has been a lot of gals, the gals and the gays coming together and celebrating that kind of openness that girlhood is.”

“That’s what I was hoping to do with the record as well. I know it’s called girlhood., but I don’t want it to be just for girls; it’s for everyone! It’s for dads, it’s for dads to understand their daughters more. It’s for daughters to send to their mom or send to their brother. It’s just songs about people all around me, and experiences of being a woman, and tricky things I’ve had to deal with like illnesses and stuff like that, and processing it through music in a way and hoping to share, that it connects with other people. It’s the first time I’ve been quite open about things that I feel passionate about, with songs that have more of a social message, or songs that are really opening up about being vulnerable about certain things that have happened.”

Asked about her own favorites, Hill says she’s currently vibing with “COMING HOME 2 U” (“because I’m in the Christmassy mood”) and “BIG BOYS CRY TOO.” “I do really like that one, and what it stands for, and how it feels sonically,” she grins. “This is spreading the girlhood. message to the guys. It’s a song I wrote for someone in my family that really struggles with depression, and I didn’t know for ages… I think where I’m from, in my hometown, there’s been a mental amount of young male suicides, of people from my school, and it’s been really shocking. It’s ultimately a really joyful song saying, ‘We are all here, shed a tear, shedding skin. You can be my hero without it.’ But the underlying message that drove me to write that isn’t so joyful.”

As for her favorite lyrics, Hill cites two lines that still stand out: “‘Fingering it all out,’ instead of ‘figuring it all out’ in ‘Rude Awakening,’ which is one that I really like,” she laughs, “and ‘you’re making me a bitch, and I’m not even on my period’ from ‘All My Girls Are Tomboys.’ I do like that line.”

**Ultimately, girlhood. is as much a musical time capsule for Jo Hill as it is a timeless collection of inspiring, coming-of-age reflections and reckonings.**

The catchy and cathartic go hand in hand as the singer/songwriter bares her soul for all to see her, hear her, and feel her in an intimate and visceral way. We don’t just come out of this album feeling moved; we come away feeling like we know Jo Hill the way one would a friend. And while some of these songs will end up being cherished deep cuts, many of them are the kind of irresistible, memorable singalongs that will stick with us for months, if not years, to come.

“I think from creating it and putting it out, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that you can’t recreate a moment, and the best things happen by accident,” Hill shares. “And sometimes the best things are in the simplest form. And you can work for ages to try and recreate, or try and make it sound better or whatever. Often you just go with what the first demo was, and I think that’s something that I’ve learned.”

“And it’s really exciting to release music, and once a song is out, it’s there forever. I think there’s a lot of pressure in this day and age for artists to blow a song up on TikTok… We live in this crazy world of social media that no artist has ever experienced before. There’s so much pressure in the lead-up of, ‘this needs to go big,’ but what excites me more is like, ‘What are people gonna discover in a few year’s time?’ To be like, ‘Wow, have you heard this record?’ – like, look at Chappell Roan, she released “Pink Pony Club” in 2020. And Mitski, people are discovering her stuff now. So what excites me more is to keep making great bodies of work, and you get them out and people then discover them, because I find social media really hard. I’m not an 18-year-old in a crop top. I don’t do dances in crop tops. That’s not something that I’m doing currently, and I don’t find TikTok a really comfortable place. I think that’s a headspace and something that I’m learning is, once you put a song out there, it has a life – and that’s really exciting. So I’m really excited to see what the life is for this.”

Whatever ‘girlhood’ once meant to you, you’re sure to come away from these songs with a new understanding of the word. Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Jo Hill’s girlhood. with Atwood Magazine as she goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her debut album!

— —

:: stream/purchase girlhood. here ::

:: connect with Jo Hill here ::

— —

Stream: ‘girlhood.’ – Jo Hill

:: Inside girlhood. ::

— —

POW GIRL

“Pow Girl” is the overture of the record. It’s addressing the insufferable-ness of being a scatty woman, a scatty, driven woman, and just trying to get through day-to-day life in a fun country anthem way. It’s very inspired by Kasey Musgraves, that one. I love how playful it is. The lyrics are quite silly; it references Molly May and Lisa May in the verses, but then it’s also really sad. It’s like, ‘You’re gonna die if you go around living like this.’ So it’s kind of tongue-in-cheek sometimes. But that’s “Pow Girl.”

WHERE DID ELLA GO?

This track is about a girl I grew up with who was a badass at school. She got kicked out, she’d stole vodka from Tesco. She was expelled. And I just thought she was the coolest kid ever. And then I saw some really shocking news about her. She basically ended up becoming a sex worker and selling drugs and all sorts of really dark, crazy stuff. And it was just my reaction to that being like, what the hell? How did that person who I used to sit next to in year 11, and we’d share our lives together, how did six years pass and that has happened to you? And I’m here… It was just a moment of being like, ‘Where did Ella go and how did that happen?!’ But it’s an anthem for her to be like, ‘You’re a bad bitch. Keep going.’

Diary of a 15 Year Old Girl (Interlude)

This is basically my year 10 diary and different women in my life, just all sorts of women were just reading out their favorite passages. That’s what that is. And it’s really funny. It’s got like, I just love how big and then small… It’s like whitey chunda, if you know what white tea is in the UK, we say whitey, if you like, smoke too much weed, and then throw up, and like ‘whitey Chunda foreplay, auntie Candy’s going to die, pray for her.’ Like it goes from that to that, and I just thought that was kind of crazy, but beautiful, and wanted to capture that with different women speaking them.

RUDE AWAKENING

That’s literally my puberty anthem about the weirdness of puberty. Puberty’s weird. You’ve suddenly got unknown things going on that you’ve never experienced before. And this is, sorry, this is so TMI, but I started my period when I was nine years old, and I did feel like that was a rude awakening. I was like, what the hell? That’s too young. And I remember my mom crying and it being really traumatic. And I felt a bit like, ‘Yeah, I didn’t invite you. No one asked you to come into my life right now.’ That’s what that song is, just about the weirdness of growing up and not knowing what’s going on. Being so young you don’t even know what’s going on with your body.

BIG BOYS CRY TOO

This is one of my favorites. This is spreading the ‘girlhood’ message to the guys. And it’s a song I wrote for someone in my family that really struggles with depression and I didn’t know for ages. And then I remember him telling me he was really, really struggling and him telling me and saying ‘I couldn’t tell anyone for years ’cause I was ashamed, I was embarrassed.’ And feeling really upset that they’d had to go through all of this by themselves. And it took them ages to… They got to such a bad place completely by themselves and really sad that they felt that they couldn’t share this with anyone. And actually that tends to be what makes things better, is when you are more open about things. And I think where I’m from, in my hometown, there’s been a mental around of young male suicides, mental amount of young male suicides people at my school. I think it’s been really shocking. And that’s the much darker side of that song is, I think it’s ultimately a really joyful song saying, ‘We are all here, shed a tear, shedding skin. You can be my hero without it.’ But the under the message that drove me to wrote that isn’t so joyful.

ALL MY GIRLS ARE TOMBOYS

I wrote this a year ago, just over a year ago when I was signed and it was just after I’d had lots of comments about what I should wear and what I should look like and people coming around to my house and going through my wardrobes and saying what felt appropriate to wear as a female artist. And what didn’t and I think I was just, I was feeling pissed off. I was comparing my, looking at all these male counterparts around me and going, ‘What?’ You’re on stage in a t-shirt and trackies and no one’s making any comments about what you’re wearing. And that was just one thing and then I think they’re just kind of, I think I was just feeling a bit kind of bitter and frustrated at being a woman [laughter] in my personal life and in my career. And this song just fell out ’cause I had started Muay Thai, I started boxing ’cause I was in quite an angry man-hatey stage of my career, which I’m over now, but I think we’ve all been there – but don’t hate the player, hate the game. And so basically wrote this song in kind of, I was like, I just came up with the phrase “All My Girls Are Tomboys.”

I just really wanted to write a song inspired by someone called Hope Tala. She’s got a song called “All My Girls Like to Fight” and then I really wanted to write a song about how I just know so many people that feel like they have to downplay their sexuality or their femininity in order to be taken seriously. And that song came out of that really, and it’s a little kind of yodely, fun anthem.

U GUYS 🫶 (Interlude)

This was just a really fun idea when I came up with the album… So little secret, I was actually gonna maybe change my name to ‘girlhood.’ I went through a whole thing and I was gonna go through a name change and da, da, da, ‘cause that’s the place that my existentialism had taken me to after the whole label thing. And then was like, ‘No, it’s a wave, it’s an era, it’s not my name,’ but I think it was born out of that. I was kind of collecting fans thoughts on what ‘feminine,’ of what ‘girlhood’ means to them, and then I had all of these recordings and thought it could be really cool to make an interlude out of it. We laid down some guitars, and a bit like verbatim theater, pasted together our favorite snippets of all these different people speaking, and what they say is really warm and lovely.

SUPERMARKET SUSHI

This track, actually, this was written the longest ago. Again, like two years ago and really simple. I was literally eating sushi with the producer called Madden. He’s an amazing Swedish producer and we were chatting and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I just love sushi.’ I love sushi so much. But specifically, I love the like squishy supermarket cheaper one. It’s some weird textural thing. When I was younger, I really wanted to be a fishmonger. I just love raw fish! Really, really niche, but I used to go up to the fish counter in the supermarket and just stare at them touching fish. Really weird. I think that’s why I love sushi so much. And so that is the weird backstory to what is actually quite a poetic and beautiful song. I just love “Supermarket Sushi.” And yeah, I was just like thinking about writing a song that was just about a weird comfort food or a snack that you wanna have when you’re just feeling a bit shitty and down and for me, that’s “Supermarket Sushi”. And I just love the fact that I rhymed ‘sushi’ with ‘knew me’: “Supermarket sushi like before you even knew me” – no one’s done that before!

VOLCANO

It’s kind of more Cranberries influenced, and it’s actually a song about a friendship breakup that I haven’t really ever spoken about. I think sometimes can be just as painful as like a boyfriend-girlfriend, partner breakup of losing a friend that was it was really horrible. It felt like a mini grief of using a friend in quite a nasty way. It was really confusing ’cause I was like, ‘God, everyone writes breakup anthems. Everyone writes about breaking up with their boyfriend or girlfriend.’ I feel like no one writes about breaking up with a friend, and I love my friends!

And it didn’t come from me really, either. It was just something I had to accept because of some very complex things that I won’t go into. But it was really sad, and this song came out of it. It’s about realizing that something isn’t serving you anymore, and when someone’s being toxic and upsetting like a volcano, you can’t go too close. That one for me is a sad one.

Outlaw (ft. Jo’s Hairdresser (interlude))

Holly the Hairdresser! My legendary hairdresser from Cheddar! She showed me this chorus, ‘proud to be an outlaw,’ and I was like, ‘That is a chorus and a half and it’s got my cow girly vibes in it. Please send that to me.’ I ended up writing verses to it, and it’s all recorded on an iPhone. And I just wanted that really rough kind of that feel to it. Her husband is singing as well, and he literally sounds like Chris Stapleton 2.0. It’s a song about being a weirdo with your best friend. Just having sleepovers and chatting shit and just being really open and weird with each other, because sometimes that’s just when I feel the happiest.
Holly’s in a duo with her husband called Beside The Gray – check them out!

COMING HOME 2 U

“Coming Home 2 U” is, I wrote this when I was in LA again two years ago, and I was feeling… I was drinking way too much coffee and feeling just like I don’t drink it anymore. ‘Cause it just, it buzzes me out. But running around LA writing with all sorts of people and just feeling a bit like out of my body and anxious and that’s kind of what the verse is referral… Singing all about. And then the chorus is all just about like, it’s all about going back to your rock, whether that’s a person or a place or whatever, and like coming home to you. And just being like, I’ve had a shit day, but at least I’ve got you to come back to. That’s was the feel of it, and it just kind of fell out. That was one of the easiest songs that came out and I’m determined to get it on like a Christmas advert. It’s gotta happen. That would be my dream.

Some Words From Queen M (interlude)

Queen M is Melissa, my best friend, and she just sounds like a motivational speaker on this interlude. This is us after we went to the theater, she took me to the theater for my birthday to go and see the recreation of the Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman fight. It’s a really famous fight that the Congo hosted in the ’80s, and she’s Congolese and she took me to this night and it was an immersive theater thing, and there were all these Congolese snacks and everyone dressed up in the clothes of that time period. It was like a step back in time, and afterwards, we were both buzzing. We were both like, ‘That was like the best thing I’ve been to in so long!’ And this was just us gassed and her speaking about it. Stuff was about to get bad with the label and things had been bad for a while and I was not in a good head space. This was a moment of my friend pulling me out of that, so I really wanted to get that in the record.

BUG LYF

This is the curveball, which I think every album should have. This is a song about, however you wanna interpret it, feeling free in nature. For me it’s about slowing down and being in nature, whether that is enhanced by having taken a mushroom or just being in nature. But it’s about relaxing to the pace of nature. Things move much slower, but they still move and they still work. If I’m honest, sometimes I found when I’ve had those kind of experiences, it can lead to some really beautiful clarity afterwards. And I guess that’s what that is about, and it’s a bit more trippy… It is definitely the trippiest side of the record, just slowing down and taking a breath and maybe seeing things a bit differently, ’cause I think we’re so black and white, but taking a minute to be a bug.

JUST AS STRONG

“Just As Strong” is actually about my experience with Lyme disease. When I was like, I got really bad Lyme’s disease like five years ago when I was living in Jordan in the Middle East, and I was so ill, and that’s what these lyrics are about. I bite my, I roll my duvet later at night. I couldn’t sleep. I was like, so I was so ill. I think it’s about, it’s an embodiment of all the failures that I’ve had and all the hard times that I’ve had over the years with various different things, starting at Lyme disease, which led to having a chronic illness, which then led to kind of different mental struggles, and it’s kind of like I’ve been that low, so I can do it again.

It’s kind of like an anthem of, if you can get that low and you can get through it, then bring it on, you know what I mean? And I think that’s kind of like what life is sometimes. I can see a storm ahead, another day of Russian roulette. I’ll keep on just as strong like I can. So, I think that song is about, it’s the antithesis to “Pow Girl.” It’s like the other side of, you’re not so flappy anymore. You’re like, I’ve been through it. Been through ‘girlhood.’ And I’m here, and I’ve done Tomboys, and I’ve had the periods, and I’ve had losses of friendships, and I’ve had all of this.

You’ve been through the turbulence, and it’s kind of like the plateau at the end of being like, yeah, we can get through this. It’s going to be okay. And it’s kind of got like an outro of sampling all the different songs, which I’ve always wanted to close a record with, which is like the crescendo, just reminding you of like all of the, because I studied classical music at school, and it’s kind of like the symphony. You’ve got the different motifs coming in, and yeah, just like explodes, and then finishes on just, that sentiment of like, keep going. So that’s the end of the record.

— —