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August 28, 2023 16 mins
Celebrating her NINTH #1 on the dance charts, Anabel Englund shares how her smash "strangely sentimental" was born, how long it took to write and produce, and why she started doubting herself.

Anabel also talks her smash "Anything 4 U" w Kaleena Zanders, how the two of them met, and why she questioned how the song would work going into recording it.

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Count down the biggest dance songs in the country every week with Brian Fink on America’s Dance 30; listen on stations around the world!
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Blue Fie loving the short hair.Thank you. I needed a change.
I'm loving your short hair too.Thanks I needed a change too. Yeah,
we all do sometimes, that's afact. All right, Here we
go, coming down in three,Annabel can you give me a countdown please?

(00:31):
I gotta compose myself dance counting downthe biggest dance songs in the country.
This is America's Dance thirty Annabel England. Two things I need to address

(00:56):
right up front. One, whydoes my phone capitalize your entire name every
time I type it? Because itneeds to be yelled at all times.
Annabell England. Well, what's sofunny is when I saw you log into
the chat, your name is allcapitals. I did that on purpose.

(01:21):
I was feeling like I'm in ayelling mood today. So secondly, Annabelle,
I asked you to stop writing songsabout me, and then you put
out strangely sentimental. This is justgetting awkward. I mean you were just
you're my news, so bring equalsnews. That's literally my only explanation.

(01:42):
I mean, thank you for providingme so many number ones. You're welcome.
You are welcome. Speaking of that, welcome back to America's Dance thirty.
Congratulations on your ninth number one.Oh that is so insane to say,

(02:02):
Yeah, it is, it is. It's insane too. Yeah,
I'm just like ecstatic. Well,as you can tell, let's preface this
with you literally just got back fromBrazil, so you're pretty worn down.

(02:23):
Yeah, yeah I was. Youknow, so I wrote the song with
Lana Leon and Adam Novador. Stopstop stop, we're gonna get to that.
Stop. How dare you take overthis interview? I honestly can't wait
to talk about this, especially likeyou said, because our mutual friend,

(02:45):
the amazing Lana Leon was a partof this. But before we get to
that, you know, you justgot back from Brazil, You're in California,
and then you have to deal withthe hurricane earthquake. I mean,
are you okay? Is everybody okay? Yeah? I think it was super
hyped up because I was out oftown when all this like stuff was happening

(03:08):
on social media and like all thenews articles and it would be like massive
hurricane coming to California, and thenI would read the article and I'd be
like, oh, but by theway, like by the time it gets
to California, it's going to belike a level one storm and like mild
wind. So I was like,Okay, this is totally being hyped up
because earlier this year we had likeforty five mile prour winds and like just

(03:34):
craziness, like the awning of oneof my roofs, like literally blew back
and punctured my roof with earlier thismonth in the year. So when I
was seeing like, oh, tenmile prour wind, I was like,
Okay, it's gonna be fine.Yeah, welcome to our life here in
Florida. And I mean I've livedin Florida almost my entire life, so

(03:55):
I'm used to, you know,prepping for hurricanes. But I couldn't imagine
while prepping for a hurricane also havingto worry about the entire planet shaking.
I know, I know. Imean I wasn't here, Like I flew
out on Thursday and I didn't seeanything about this hurricane. So it wasn't

(04:18):
until I was already in Brazil andI was like, oh my gosh,
my baby, like is he goingto be safe? Because I kind of
live in the mountains a little bit, and so I was like, you
know, the wind can be alittle more intense out there, but I
was all fine, thank God.And this is gonna sound like a simpleton
and probably stupid question, but whatis living through an earthquake? Like?

(04:44):
Like I couldn't imagine the PTSD ofbeing woken up by the entire planets shaking.
I've been in like a high risein downtown as as there was an
earthquake happening, and that was crazybecause literally the building was swaying and the
windows were rattling, and I waslike, I'm gonna die right now.

(05:15):
Well, let's talk about happier stuffother than this SimCity that we're all living
in right now, Let's talk aboutstrangely sentimental. Your ninth number one?
How was this song born? Thiswas, believe it or not, my
first session since having a baby.It was like three months postpartum, and

(05:40):
I remember I was in the sessionwith Lana leon Are Beloved and Adam Novador,
and I remember feeling a little bitof imposter syndrome because I was like,
who am I? A lot ofwhat happens after you have a baby
is like a lot of the hormonesof like when you go through puberty.
So it's a lot of like allthese new things are happening, and my

(06:01):
mental like my mental state is sodifferent, like your DNA literally changes.
So going into a session felt like, okay, like am I still good
at this? Like am I goingto be good at this? Like is
my voice sound good? Is myvoice different? You know, questioning so
much about myself And I remember beingin the vocal booth like do I sound

(06:25):
okay? And you know, justreally in my head. I was in
my head so much, but becauseI was with such wonderful people, like
they were like, no, you'redoing great, You're doing great, sweetie.
But it was I love. Theconcept of what we wrote about strangely
sentimental is exactly what it sounds like. It's about, you know, feeling

(06:46):
nostalgic towards some one or something thatyou know it didn't work out for a
reason, and like you're better offwhere you are right now, but for
some reason in this moment, youmiss that person or you miss that thing
and you don't know why, butyou're just like, this is weird,
but okay, whatever, let's writea song about it. So it's just

(07:08):
a testament to showing, I thinkwomen in the industry that we can do
it, Like you can have ababy, and you can get in the
studio three months later and write anumber one track. And yes, you
change, but you don't. You'rechanging, but you're growing and you're developing
into the new you. And it'snot like you're a different person, but

(07:29):
you have new elements. I havenew elements and from feeling you know,
wishy washy about like my capabilities orof who I am, and then to
go on the studio and show myselfthat I can do it, I think
the biggest thing is like pushing throughthe moments where you feel self conscious or
you feel like you can't do something. I think for me, like just

(07:49):
doing it anyway has always showed methat I am stronger than I think I
am, and I am capable ofall these things. And my brain will
tell me you can't or you suckor you sound like but like in reality,
that's not true and you just haveto I have to just like push

(08:09):
through and do it anyway to showthat I can. And my brain's just
lying to me. And that's agreat message for anything, because you know,
I deal with anxiety as well,and you know there's a lot of
situations where our brain is just ourworst enemy and for some reason, it's
trying to get us to fail,and it's telling us we can't do it,

(08:33):
and it just takes us doing it, pushing past that and actually accomplishing
it, and then we feel sogood after it knowing that we can't accomplish
it. Yeah. And I thinkit's also important to share those moments with
people who you trust and who youlove, because a lot of the time,
I mean, my whole life isa chain of events of anxiety,

(08:54):
fear, pushing through it and doingit anyway, Like I am here with
you right now because of fighting thefear and just stepping into faith and doing
it regardless of what my brain's tellingme. But because I share my experiences
with my management team, my reallyclose friends, my loved ones, they're
able to tell me, well,remember when you did this, this and

(09:16):
this, Oh yeah, because Ijust forget everything, like I just believe
my brain and forget that I've doneall these crazy, amazing things. And
so like having being able to doit, but then also being seen doing
it and being able to be reflectedback who you are, I think is
also really important part of the processfor me because it's important to have,

(09:37):
you know, support, It's soimportant, Isn't it crazy? How our
brains are such dicks? Like,like, literally I go when I do
bike mss you know, biking fiftymiles or biking one hundred miles, it
scares the shit out of me.And then I just have to remind myself
I've done it before, so Ican do it again. Now, how

(09:58):
long was the entire process of writingand producing this song? So we wrote
it in one day. I meanwe usually write our songs in one day.
The production took a little longer,which it always does because it's like
we write the song with the generalbass of what's there, and then the
producer will take the song and finetune it and get everything ready and like

(10:20):
comp the vocals and then you know, we'll send it off. So the
track itself took longer, but thesong was written and recorded in a day.
That's so crazy. And then,as we've talked about in the past,
a lot of times, you incorporatestuff that you're watching into songs.
Was that incorporated it all into thisone? No? I mean this one

(10:43):
was specifically based upon people in mylife and situations in my life, and
you know, my sobriety and justbeing a crazy girl and having like like,
I don't remember a thing about us, but I do remember that it
was a fun time to look backon. Y Well, congratulations on your

(11:13):
ninth number one. You know,I would definitely be remiss if I didn't
mention that people can search America's Dancethirty and listen to past episodes of the
podcast and get to know you betterbecause we've chatted like nine or ten times
now, so people can definitely getto know you better. Let's also talk

(11:35):
about anything for you with Kaleina Xanders, because that's climbing the chart. How
did you guys first meet? Iknow you had mentioned it was at a
festival that you guys were both playing. Yeah, so we met it hard,
hard summer like it was after COVID. I think it was like the

(11:56):
first festival back for you guys,right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
it was. Okay, so it'safter COVID. I'm at Kalina and we
clicked really well. We were like, okay, yeah, let's let's create,
let's create. So it was alittle time after that because you know,
it's a music industry and like youknow, we we became close just
from meeting. But Anyway, weended up doing a session together, and

(12:18):
it's funny because we are so different, like mentally physically, like we are
just so opposite of each other,but we also have so much in common
and we both just love each otherso much. And before the session,
I was like, Okay, Ireally wonder like how this is going to
go, because like our voices areso different, yeah, because she kind
of normally belts it out like likebig powerful voice and you are very subtle,

(12:45):
beautiful voice. Yeah. And forme, like with my microphone,
I need it to be turned upreally loud because I sing really softly,
whereas if she was to grab aholdof my mic, it would literally pierce
people's or drums. She doesn't evenneed a mic, honestly, because he
has such a powerful voice. SoI was like, Okay, I wonder

(13:07):
how this is going to go,but like, let's do it. I'm
excited. So we did this sessionand we just ended up writing about friendship,
and I feel like it's also endedup being like a pride song in
a way without intentionally being a pridesong, because it's like your color is
loud and you stand out, andit's about friendship and basically like you're never

(13:31):
too much for anyone, and Ilove you. And even though you want
to hide and you want to shyaway from maybe who you are because you
feel like it's too much, likeyou're not and whether you feel that way
or not, like I'm here foryou and I'm going to be there for
you and I'll do anything for you. I really love like I love the
song we made. The production wasn'tthere yet, it wasn't quite there,

(13:54):
but I really love the song andit just was so sweet, and I
mean from there we just kind ofbe came besties. Like I just I
love her and we just have somuch fun together. She's hilarious. She
makes me laugh, and she alsohas so much energy and I'm just like
Sleepy Girl twenty four seven, sobeing with her, like I feel really

(14:18):
energetic. And so yeah, I'mI'm happy that that song came out because
it was it was a little wehad to pull some strings to get it
to come out. I won't spillthe tea on air, but well,
I'm so glad it happened. Becauseyou guys compliment each other so well,

(14:39):
not only lyrically in the song butvocally. Your voices sound so great.
She did such a great job oftoning her voice down to kind of meet
yours. Yeah. I mean,I think they just complimenting each other so
well, and she was able tolike belt it out and do her thing

(15:00):
too, and like even in herverse, she just does her thing,
ye, And I'm just like,lately, you know, just doing my
thing. And to see that songclimbing the charts too, because this is
my first I think it's well,this is at least my first song that
I've ever like written and recorded witha vocalist that's actually gone out and for

(15:20):
it to be such an uplifting,happy song. And I saw like at
first I was like, Okay,it's not in the top fifty, and
then I was like, oh mygosh, it's number forty, it's number
thirty six, it's number thirty two, so like it's climbing, and I'm
like, oh my gosh, ifthis could go number one two, that
would be not only stropping little hintsthere for you, not only no pressure,

(15:43):
think no pressure. Not only wouldit be amazing obviously because the story
behind it, but it would beyour tenth number one, which would be
so amazing. And I know England, I know you have been on a
WorldWind of travel. I can't thankyou enough for your time. It's always
awesome seeing you. Thank you forbeing with us on America's Dance thirty.

(16:07):
Yeah, I love you and anytimealways America's Dance thirty Counting down the biggest
dance songs in the country. America'sDance thirty
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