Meet the 17-year-old behind TikTok’s viral song of the summer
Image: via Claire Rosinkranz
This article was originally published for CHECK-OUT Magazine and can be read here.
Somewhere beyond the sun-kissed beaches, sidewalks and ranches, the moonlit Californian mountains are where CLAIRE ROSINKRANZ feels most at home. Huddled with friends, the musician finds peace in blue shooting stars that dance across the sky. Where once her musical dreams felt distant, a viral song she released last year presented her with a stark, meteoric ascent to fame. The over-ninety-million-streams kind of fame that no bubbly teenager can prepare themselves for. Dropping new songs Parking Lot and Real Life today after a successful debut EP, Rosinkranz explores her coming-of-age through relatable lyrics on crushes and navigating friendship, all slicked together with soft, syrupy vocals. It’s delectable, candy-sweet pop with a sprinkling of “bad bitch energy.”
Find yourself engrossed in TIKTOK at ungodly hours and it’s almost inevitable that you’ll hear “five, six, seven, eight… dance with me in my backyard boy.” And Rosinkranz happens to be the teen sweetheart behind that very mega hit Backyard Boy that has amassed a casual 2.5 million features on the app, an irresistible shower-singing anthem that chronicles all the heat and heart flutters of a summer romance. Turning 17 only last month, she finds herself coming to terms with cyber stardom mid-pandemic.
“I was at my best friend's house in Oregon, we were quarantined together for a hot minute; it was over the summer. Out of nowhere people were texting me saying, ‘Your song’s doing really well on TikTok, it's popping off!’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, cool.’ I didn't even check it at first. I would get scared every time I heard it – I'd be scrolling and jump back in shock because it was my voice. It was weird.” Her current life takes the same major plot twist of a movie in which a small-town girl makes the big time. But her popularity is no fortuitous accident any more than it is hard work and dedication as Rosinkranz’s songwriting can be traced back to the notebook scribbles in her bedroom at just 8-years-old, or the lyrics she penned on sandy shores after a long day of home-schooling, then dance class. “The beach is my favourite place, I’ll go maybe three times a week. I love swimming so I’ll just drive there or chill by the cliff area,” she muses. “I’ll organise songs and let everything out of my brain. I also feel like my room at 3am is a safe space.”
This homegrown charm is rooted within Rosinkranz’s every step on the music ladder. Her father, Ragnar, is a producer known for making radio jingles, and works closely with his daughter on mastering her tracks. “My parents are totally supportive, they want me to live out my creative passions. They would be realistic, saying it's very possible to fail, but they believe in me regardless. Also, my three younger sisters are amazing. Sometimes they don't like to tell it to my face, but they're always super proud and love sharing my songs.” Further up the family tree, her maternal grandmother made a career selling infant songs, and even the music video for Backyard Boy was filmed in a family friend’s garden. The single itself radiates a carefree, sunny aura thanks to its major key and oscillating pitch shifts; a narrative you’d want playing in the background of any rosy-cheeked first kiss. “I'm aware that when I write I try putting myself in other people's shoes, imagining situations I would like to be in or just creating fictional universes. I don't always write based on real life experiences, it’s almost like becoming another person.”
In that vein, her prior EP, BeVerly Hills BoYfRiEnd, was a tale of Rosinkranz’s paternal grandmother, an opera singer touring the world. “I couldn't have asked for a better family situation, they mean everything to me,” the teen says. For a girl so family-oriented, mass fame among strangers is a surreal juxtaposition, on a scale difficult to comprehend: “My brain still doesn't understand it. I see my Instagram and TikTok then I'm like ‘Oh, there's a decent amount of people following me.’ But when I don't look at that, I feel the same way as I did before. When I’m out, I'm not crazy famous like BILLIE EILISH, but there's definitely friends who come out of the blue who want to hang out.”
But in true Gen Z style, Rosinkranz has adapted to change and used TikTok as a lyrical outlet, asking followers to suggest topics for her two latest releases. And while writing is just another skill on the young artist’s well-versed creative resumé, playing numerous instruments, she accredits her self-discipline to being a classically trained ballerina. After half-a-lifetime immersed in music, including a teen boy band phase (we’ve all been there), Rosinkranz blends a warm, saccharine voice with honey-smooth melodies and has lyrics you can really sink your teeth into as an angsty young person falling in and out of love. Her stylistic cues come from far and wide, consolidating into what the singer describes as “alternative-blues-pop.” An experimental pick-and-mix of sources from The Beatles to DANIEL CAESAR, and more recently, fellow viral contemporary BENEE.
New single Parking Lot covers common ground in dating. It engages the anxiety-riddled nuance of not feeling good enough to be loved – something cleverly reflected in the song’s tempo - that accelerates in pace. “It’s like watching the world move around you. All of a sudden, those thoughts speed up to a place where I feel overwhelmed. Then I shut it down and try not to think about it. It stops and it’s me alone on the curb at 12am again.” To say it involved a delirious recording process wouldn’t be far wrong: “When I was singing the end, I could barely even breathe, it was so funny. It sounded like I was doing a rap.”
By contrast, Real Life taps into the realities of impending adulthood, the mistakes made, the alarms that are snoozed. “It’s an emotional rollercoaster,” she shares. Emotional maturity is a wise trait, and as she evolves into the upper echelons of teenage life, Rosinkranz hopes to further traverse the human condition in her songs. “Music is definitely a coping mechanism, if I’m angry or sad it’s nice to put on headphones and have a one-sided conversation where you’re able to cry it out, it’s important to do that.” Candid expression is rife in her image, too. Back in January, Rosinkranz spent her birthday thrift shopping with friends, shoulder-deep in used clothing bins. “My personal style is basically made up of big baggy pants and tanks from the 2000s, it’s constantly changing. Recently I’ve liked streetwear. I actually did my first runway not long ago at New York Fashion Week with a brand called TOMBOGO, it was super sick.”
But what does it really feel like to become an unintentional viral sensation? “I'm coping fine with it. Honestly, I think my family keeps me very grounded and humble. Then my friends, they'll make fun of me sometimes in a good way, I guess it just always reminds me that I'm the same Claire as I was before I started this.”