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| Danielia Cotton |
FIERCELY AND DEFIANTLY, DANIELIA COTTON
RELEASES ‘CHEAP HIGH’ MUSIC VIDEO TO CONFRONT
ADDICTIVE POWER OF WEALTH IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES
Premiering Now at American Songwriter, Socially Distant-Shot Video from 5/29 Album Release A Different War
Finds Widely Acclaimed Blues-Rocker Addressing the Isolation that Comes with Addiction
RadioWoodstock 100.1 WDST Celebrates Album Release Day with ‘Sofa Sessions’ Livestream Concert Event, 5/29 @ 7 p.m. ET
"Danielia Cotton has not had it easy. But lucky for us, she channels her pain and suffering into kick-ass musical creations we can all enjoy.” - Guitar World
The music video for widely acclaimed blues-rocker DANIELIA COTTON’s new stomping anthem, CHEAP HIGH, from next week’s album release, A Different War, premieres today at American Songwriter, noting how “Cotton’s raspy voice is tinged with anger and frustration, but she channels her powerful vocal delivery into a cathartic triumph by the song’s end.”
Cotton drew on childhood memories of surviving as a poor multi-racial youth in an upper middle-class New Jersey community. While creating the video, she was astonished witnessing the addictive power of a “cheap high” surge through our communities during the pandemic, further highlighting our economic disparities.
“Right now there are so many people in their homes with no money coming, yet they’re frantically ordering all kinds of items online,” says Cotton. “It’s still going on. It’s even coming down to buying ridiculous things like designer brands for masks. It’s crazy. And then there are those who wear masks made from a handkerchief because that’s all they’ve got.”
Writing CHEAP HIGH, now active at Triple A radio, made Cotton think a lot about the things she didn’t have as a kid – like running water, which she went without until she was in high school. And not having traditional heating, instead having to chop wood for the stove with her sister when they came home from track practice. And being laughed at by the other kids in junior high for wearing cheap supermarket sneakers. The result was that spending became a formidable drug for her that substituted for other substances she found less desirable. The song speaks not only to personal unhappiness arising from greed but also to the dangers of a society mired in an economic disparity that even the pandemic cannot break.
“We haven’t had such a disparity between the rich and the poor like this in a long time,” she says. “Showing off things to prove you have money is a cheap high. That’s where we all are right now. Spending is an epidemic in our country, but what makes you truly happy in life is people and love.
The pandemic shutdown limited filming inside her Manhattan apartment and on the building’s roof deck, just her and videographer Ray Foley, socially distanced from each other during the entire process. Fittingly, the song is about isolation − the isolation that comes with any addiction, such as spending, and when one is besieged by self-doubt. The video forcefully conveys that sense of isolation and emptiness, courtesy of COVID-19.
CHEAP HIGH is the second single from A Different War, her most politically charged album in a widely heralded career that has drawn praise from the New York Times, Billboard, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, and USA Today, among many others. Set for release May 29 on all major digital platforms through Cottontown Music, the album will be celebrated that evening by RadioWoodstock 100.1 with a Sofa Sessions Livestream Concert Event at 7 p.m. ET. Watch it here.
A Different War finds Cotton, whose voice gives her songs “stunning power” (No Depression), speaking to these extraordinary times by unloading her sin while the world around her is gripped in a turbulent spin. Cotton frames the six-song opus by confronting race, gender, and wealth − deeply personal and pervasive issues that have plagued folks like her for an eternity.
A Different War will be available May 29 at Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, and where music is consumed on-line.
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