Teddy Geiger, More Confident Than Ever, Told Us Who She Was In 2018

a little bit over each year ago, Teddy Geiger revealed something crucial on Instagram, something that would shape the rest of her life. "I'm transitioning," she wrote to answer a fan's question about her changing appearance. "Love it or hate it this is who I've Been for a looooong time."


The declaration kicked off a new era for Geiger, the songwriter and singer who'd spent years in back of the scenes penning music for One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Shawn Mendes. Case in point, three songs Geiger and Mendes wrote with each other — "Stitches," "Treat You Better," and "There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back" — hit the best 10 and speedily became Mendes's signature tracks. Although that's all piece of Geiger's career.


Her personalized news precipitated a string of revealing, illuminating interviews that focused on her: her own music, her identity, and her years-long path from teenage pop-rock wunderkind to celebrated songwriting maestro. In 2006, Geiger hit as a talented solo artist with "For You I plan to (Confidence)," released a debut album called Underage Thinking, and ventured briefly into film and TV roles all before age 21.


As she recapped to The New York Times earlier this year, though, she noticed the music-industry machine exhausting. "Having a hit is fine, however doing the work is what I want," she said. "I get more excited the day of creation than once it's big."


In 2018, right after years of quiet retreat and private writing, Geiger was once again eager to share her creation. Teddy became teddy<3, a fun moniker used to package her own new solo recordings, which culminated in a personalized, wildly technicolor new album called LillyAnna. She made some public appearances at awards shows and industry parties. And notably, she teamed back up with Mendes for the most ambitious album of his career. Here's what happened while in the highest-profile, most creatively enterprising year of Geiger's life.


There's Nothing Holdin' Them Back


Before Mendes dropped his self-titled album in May, he gave us a taste of his newfound maturation on the advance singles "In My Blood" and "Lost in Japan" — two Geiger co-writes that thrusted Mendes's star forward both musically and thematically. The former mines the 20-year-old's struggles with anxiety while the latter playfully saunters into the arena of sex.


Geiger co-produced those as she did for 11 of the album's 14 tracks, giving Shawn Mendes a unified, holistic aura of confidence. It's a representation of Mendes completely coming into his own as a performer, writer, and all-around talent, one his recent Rolling Stone cover story folds into a larger examination of his fame. It's also hard not to equate that sonic self-assurance to Geiger's own clear path forward, which started right after letting the world know who she is.


One of Mendes's idols is John Mayer, a pop figure who likewise was hardly ever seen without a guitar in his early years. Geiger's "For You I'll sounded like it fit that Mayer mold, also, with its hushed vocals and strummed acoustic chords, so there's a little bit of undeniable synergy in their creative partnership. The ideal part right now, obviously, is how Geiger's sound has matured well in back of that, adding splashes of psychedelia and also a coat of early 2000s New York grit. You don't necessarily hear it on Shawn Mendes — though the roomy, pumped-up claps on "Queen" are steps forward — yet it's all over LillyAnna, her lush reintroduction as teddy<3.


Under The Blue And Brand New


case in point, LillyAnna's uncommon arrangements are precisely what make it so endearing. She still strums chords — you could hear as much on the glam title track and the panoramic "Under the Blue" — yet the songs they serve frequently sound sideways. Geiger's voice is rarely present without a layer of distortion or reverb and often even partially obscured in the mix. A lot of the effects-heavy tracks, like moody instrumental "8" and frenetic indie pop bop "Wishing (And Hoping)," sound lifted right from a concealed SoundCloud page. In a way, they were; Geiger spent a portion of 2018 tweeting out demo versions of dozens of tracks trim assembled over the years.


Although LillyAnna, named for a persona lose once used online, isn't just a number of ideas. The songs date from 2011 or 2012 until right before she transitioned, as she revealed to Zane Lowe in September. Despite that, it's easy to hear LillyAnna — with its burying of solid pop foundations under whirling keyboard textures, layers of post-punk bass lines, and even a brief funk detour (!) — As a reemergence of the new teddy<3. And it also sounds exciting.


So, also, does a recent acoustic "Under Pressure" cover where she plays the David Bowie to Mendes's Freddie Mercury, along with a reportedly forthcoming track for singer Olivia O'Brien that Geiger baked up while using a beer can as a musical instrument at a party. "I just feel more open," she mentioned in that New York Times interview. For Geiger, it's a resurfacing. Nevertheless for teddy<3, it's just the beginning.