Meg Lui’s Debut Album ‘Instant Validation’ Is Out Now

Instant Validation has arrived!

Meg Lui’s debut album, produced by Sufjan Stevens, features 12 songs including the recent singles “Gone Girl,” a cover of The Cranberries’ “Dreams (feat. Sufjan Stevens),” “Elvis Queen,” and “Miss Queen Know It All.”

Born from her diary-like yet poetic approach to lyrical storytelling, Instant Validation often examines the endless whirlwind of navigating life in your mid-30s: the infinite complexities of love and familial bonds, the suffocating grip of our collective addiction to technology, the prolonged state of arrested development endemic to so many millennials. In an unexpected twist, the album’s theme of pushing past inertia took on a new significance when Lui became pregnant in the final stages of the LP’s production. “I think my songs tend to sound like I’m giving advice, but most of the time I’m actually talking to myself and trying to work through my problems,” she says. “A lot of these songs came from feeling like I’m perpetually stuck and wasn’t growing as a person, and when I listened back I realized so many of the lyrics are about finding the courage to go ahead and live my life and not wait for this industry, which has been hard to find a footing in. To not wait on permission to make art – or try to make it fit into a perfect package and let it live and breathe as it is.”

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The title track “Instant Validation (feat. Sufjan Stevens)” offers a sunny yet incisive look at the absurdity of living life through a screen, capturing the compulsive, self-defeating loop of seeking validation online.

“I wrote ‘Instant Validation’ thinking about our collective obsession with checking social media to make sure we’re getting enough likes — and how it feeds the worst part of ourselves. It’s about seeking affirmation to make small moments feel special – even when they already are – and curating our lives through pictures and videos for other people. It’s not meant to be a judgment on others, it was something I saw in myself and still struggle with. So this song is an attempt to poke fun at my own insecurities around having an online presence.” – Meg Lui