Two years ago, Audrey Hobert had never written a song. She was a staff writer on a Nickelodeon series and had recently moved in with her childhood friend Gracie Abrams in Los Angeles. About six months later, a phrase spoken by a heartbroken acquaintance caught their attention; Hobert and Abrams sang it back to each other and wrote a complete song that night. Within the following year, Hobert co-wrote songs including “I Love You, I’m Sorry” and “Risk” for Abrams’s number-two album The Secret of Us. When the television show she was working on was later canceled, Hobert made a hard pivot into her own music.

What happened was Who's the Clown, a debut album where every track came from Hobert's own pen. In this live conversation recorded at NYU Steinhardt's Music and Performing Arts Professions program at Chelsea Studios, Hobert traces her path from dance classes choreographed to One Direction to eight-hour writing sessions that yield two good lines on a lucky day. She explains why she can't write in front of anyone, why she refuses to repeat a chorus three times, and why the Steve Martin documentary made her open her album with the disarmingly strange declaration: "I like to touch people."

The conversation moves from craft to confession as Hobert reflects on what it means to finally be looked at, and whether the view from inside the spotlight is everything she'd imagined.

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SONGS DISCUSSED

Gracie Abrams "I Love You, I'm Sorry"
Gracie Abrams "That's So True"
Smash Mouth "All Star"
One Direction "Kiss You"
Audrey Hobert "Wet Hair"
Audrey Hobert "Chateau"
Audrey Hobert "I Like to Touch People"
Audrey Hobert "Sex in the City"
Audrey Hobert "Sue Me"
Audrey Hobert "Bowling Alley"
Semisonic "Closing Time"
Audrey Hobert "Silver Jubilee"
Audrey Hobert "Don't Go Back to His Ass"
Audrey Hobert "Shooting Star"
Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling"

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Audrey Hobert says the quiet part out loud