The Female First Awards 2021: Single of the Year

by Holly Mosley | 15 December 2021

With most artists back in the studios this year, there’s been some stellar releases from female performers. A lot of it has been inspired by life in lockdown, which has added an altogether more contemplative edge to music releases of late.

FFA21 Single of the Year nominees

Here are our five nominations for Single of the Year, each of which being everything that our website stands for: empowering, entertaining and inspiring.

Happier Than Ever - Billie Eilish

Every single track on Billie’s second album is absolute perfection, but titular song Happier Than Ever is such a painful yet positive anthem about realising how miserable a relationship can be making you. It’s about finally being over that toxic presence that never made you happy - and it’s a lesson we can all learn from.

It goes from melancholy ballad to angsty pop-punk, with Billie describing it as “probably the most therapeutic song I've ever written or recorded”. It is currently up for four Grammys including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

Build a B***h - Bella Poarch

This song is verging on iconic in the way it addresses unrealistic male expectations of women. It’s the debut release of TikTok superstar Bella Poarch and comes alongside MTV VMA nominated video featuring a “Build-a-B***h” factory. It’s insanely funny, while also saying everything we ever needed a song to say about how women don’t have to be anything other than the perfectly flawed human being they are.

Rumors - Lizzo ft. Cardi B

We’re certainly building on a theme here, because Lizzo’s 2021 rap single featuring Cardi B is the best “f*** you” to haters since Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do. In Rumors, she addresses the various criticisms she’s received for her weight, her infamous smoothie detox, her race and her showing off her body over the years.

It’s Lizzo’s first new track since the release of her critically acclaimed 2019 album Cuz I Love You, and it only cements the view we have of Lizzo as a badass, body-positive role model that all women should aspire to be like.

Transparent Soul - Willow ft. Travis Barker

21-year-old Willow Smith has carved out a new image for herself at the forefront of the resurgence of 2000s pop-punk and Transparent Soul, taken from her fourth album Lately I Feel Everything, is such a powerful number about seeing through fake people.

Willow takes no prisoners with her new album, and we are loving this trend of saying exactly what’s on one’s mind, and she’s brimming with that noughties “attitude”.

Serotonin - Girl In Red

Mental health is a hugely important issue that needs to be talked about way more often than it is, especially after so many months of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So many people suffer in silence with thoughts of self-harm and suicide without ever getting any kind of help for it, be it pharmaceutical or psychological.

In her candid song Serotonin, Girl In Red addresses depression, anxiety and intrusive thoughts, how it affects her from day to day, and how she deals with it with drugs and therapy. It’s a cathartic track that reaches people at a deeply emotional level, and is the first on her debut album If I Could Make It Go Quiet which has been a huge critical success.