It’s a regular Saturday afternoon in 2016 and as she sits down for some family lunch, Georgia Buchanan’s phone pings with an email.
The 25-year-old has just launched her solo career under a new alias of Call Me Loop and her debut single has racked up 100,000 streams in 24 hours. A new dawn has begun.
Fast forward a whirlwind seven years, thousands of fans and over 70 million streams, it’s time for Call Me Loop to say goodbye – but only on Loop’s terms.
Giving her last interview before hanging up the mic, Loop looks back fondly at the email announcing that ‘Looking at You’ had hit the Global New Music Friday playlist, joking that she thought there must have been too many zeros on the figure.
That ‘holy sh**t’ moment, as Loop puts it, marked the start of a long string of successful releases that culminated with ‘Goodbye Song’, dropped last month.
On that track, the star sheds her trademark swaggering synth production for a pensive flick which opens: “Sometimes I wonder who I’d be if I chose different if I could go back change it all I think I would.”
Over nearly three minutes, Loop relives the last seven years as she gives a ‘final kiss’ to her solo project. It’s extraordinary songwriting – lump-in-throat vulnerability delivered with calmness in closing a huge life chapter.
Loop said: “I can’t say, truthfully, that I was totally at peace back when I wrote it last Spring. I was actually in a pretty angry and upset place.
“It’s taken me a year, but I am now very much in that place of clarity and contentment, and I’m proud that I walked away on my own terms, and am now living a life that feels better suited to me and my relationships and my goals.”
The star explains her frustration at label obsessions with TikTok and the use-and-abuse viral fame that has become so prevalent in the industry. She added: “I’m not a content creator, you know. I’m too old to have grown up on those apps and it’s not the ‘pop star’ world I fell in love with when I was a little girl.”
Loop wrote ‘Goodbye Song’ more than 12 months before its release and it took a year of ‘super overwhelming’ soul-searching and flip-flopping over the decision – as well as a brief office job earlier this year – to reach a point where ‘Goodbye Song’ could be put out with peace of mind.
Since that family lunch in 2016, the highs for Call Me Loop really have been high. Less than a year after debuting, Loop’s third single ‘As If’ found its way into the heart of none other than Elton John and got a spin on the pop god’s Rocket Hour show.
Loop said: “I was in the car going somewhere when I got the email to tell me that not only was it getting a radio play, but it was getting a f***ing Elton John radio play!
“My dad set his alarm to make sure he didn’t miss it, as it was a late night show and then messaged me immediately afterwards to send a voice note recording of the intro Elton gave me before playing the song.
“My mum said she woke up at 3:45 am to find him listening to it with earphones. They were very proud.”
The singles kept coming and the streams rolling in and the Call Me Loop hype rocketed on the turn of 2018 as she dropped ‘Give ‘n’ Take’.
One of the best pop songs of the decade, the single’s glorious hooks and bubbling production are dripping with charisma. Loop knew it was something special as it flowed in the studio and still holds it in that regard after its tens of millions of streams.
She said: “I wrote this in about three hours in my first session with producer Hight. It was so easy and we had so much fun. From the moment I left the studio that day, I could not stop playing it back and sending it to all my friends and family. I knew it was going to be the single to step me up to the next level.
“‘Give ‘n’ Take’ will always be like THE song for me. I will still revel in the highs of that song forever.”
If there’s one thing it’s clear Call Me Loop knows to do, it’s writing a pop smash and her independent tracks could be envied by the very biggest of pop stars.
Proof of that came in 2020 as a gallon of water ricocheted over the torso of Nicole Scherzinger on The X Factor when The Pussycat Dolls teased their comeback single. The 10-second teaser of ‘React’ was powerful, catchy and… written by Call Me Loop.
A track that didn’t quite fit with the star’s era, Loop sent the flick to be pitched to other artists, not expecting one of the biggest girl groups of all time to snap it up.
Loop said: “I got this email. It was just titled ‘React – Pussycat Dolls’ and the email said they’d like it as their comeback single.
“I read and re-read it over and over again, and just replied, ‘Do you mean THE pussycat dolls? With Nicole Scherzinger?’
“When they performed the teaser on The X Factor, I just lost my s**t! It was and still continues to be the most amazing feeling. Seeing a huge iconic group like that singing the words that I wrote, about my silly little life, on these huge world stages, across TV shows, hearing it on the radio, all that jazz.. it’ll never get old!”
It’s success like that which has led to Call Me Loop’s decision to pursue music behind the scenes and leave the solo project behind, but not without one final hurrah. The star will take to the Colours stage in London on Thursday night in an emotional final gig (tickets here).
She said: “I need this one last show to see all my gorgeous wonderful fans and thank them for everything they’ve given me over the years.
“It’ll be a big ol’ party! I can’t promise that I won’t cry. I will need everyone to know the words to ‘Goodbye Song’ because the chances of me getting through that without crumbling are slim.
“Other than that I promise it’ll be a very happy fun affair, with loads of energy, loads of me chatting too much, as always, and just all the bangers from over the years. Afterwards we’re all just gonna have a boogie together into the wee hours.
“This night will be one that I remember for the rest of my life and I want that to be the case for everyone who’s spending their money to come and join me there!”
Come Friday morning, the Call Me Loop chapter may be closed, but it’s one the Georgia Buchanan of 2016 can be phenomenally proud of – and one whose tracks be blasted loud from the playlists of fans for the rest of their lives.
Call Me Loop will live on, in the hits and wherever Loop takes her pop knowhow behind the industry’s curtains.
Are you a Call Me Loop fan? Let us know @CelebMix on Twitter.