INTERVIEW: Idina Menzel releases disco album 'Drama Queen': “If I was only doing one thing the whole time, it wouldn't be who I am. This music is a celebration of all the colours of who we all are.”

Idina Menzel has had a career that has crossed into multiple artistic areas, from musical theatre, to films, television, pop music and now disco. Forever embedded in pop culture - and in the hearts of an entire generation - as the voice of Elsa and ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen, today she releases perhaps one of her greatest works to date, the album Drama Queen.

Including collaborations from music heavyweights including Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters) and Nile Rodgers (Madonna, Diana Ross, Daft Punk), Menzel has created a glorious, uplifting album that shimmers with classic disco sounds mixed with modern dance music, born from late nights in clubs and a place of pure joy. The main impetus for Drama Queen, though – and its heart – came from Menzel’s connection with, support and love for the LGBTQI+ community. “I really feel like I wouldn’t be who I am today, I wouldn’t have the career I have, if it wasn’t for my friends in the queer community,” she says.

“I am a Drama Queen…I’m dramatic and emotional and passionate. I love the stage and the spotlight. I love the attention and the roar of an audience. I have big feelings. I sing my ass off through tears of joy, heartbreak, anger, and sadness,” Menzel says. “This project is the most fun I’ve ever had writing and recording an album. I want everyone to move and sing with me and embrace their inner Drama Queen. So, from this Drama Queen to anyone and everyone who wants to join me in celebration: I’ll meet you on the dance floor or at the stage door or wherever you will have me. This album is for you.”

The album kicks off with first single ‘Move’, an intoxicating electropop-disco smash that encourages you to not dim your light or let anyone get in the way of your true self. ‘Paradise’, the song Menzel worked on with Nile Rodgers, is a smooth disco-funk track which begins with an orchestral flourish as Menzel sings of the invigorating effects of a new relationship: “It’s crazy how you’re making me dream again…I feel I’m coming alive when I look in your eyes.” And don’t skip past the end where, against a tinkling piano, Menzel closes the song with a majestic, powerful vocal performance.

Jake Shears, most famous as co-lead singer and songwriter with 2000s band Scissor Sisters. created two songs on the album with Menzel. Second single ‘Dramatic’, a pulsing, heaving electropop banger, and album highlight ‘Funny Kind of Lonely’, a gorgeous, melancholic ‘dance-cry’ track.

While acceptance of self is a major theme on the album, there is also themes of love, sex and overcoming the knocks of life by coming back stronger than ever. Third single, the sparkling and anthemic ‘Beast’ is full of bouncing synths and a personal favourite of Menzel. It is a powerful story of fighting back after a relationship falls apart: “Cause you left me at the lowest I’ve ever been / Had to claw my way back out again / But I’ve woken up the beast in me / And I'm stronger than you'll ever be.” There is also a glorious ‘don’t fuck with me’ moment as Menzel declares “I got my nails done - the pointy kind.”

‘Madison Hotel’ begins with just a sedate piano and Menzel’s voice before sliding into a dance-jazz fusion that celebrates a night of decadence at the titular hotel. ‘Black out the curtains / I’m wearing the sheets for clothes / You’re not complaining.’ ‘Royalty’, a shimmering disco track encourages self love with a look into Menzel’s own self-doubts throughout her career. “I’m royalty, I’m anything I want to be / If I believe it’s true…I used to think I wasn’t good enough / They said I wasn’t glamorous, now I don’t give a fuck’. ‘Make Me Hate Me’, with its funky electric guitar foundation follows a similar theme but arguably in a more powerful way as Menzel hits out at a world that can often, intentionally or pervasively, encourage people, particularly women, to feel less about themselves. “You can make me out to be a sadistic drama queen / But you can’t make me hate me…so throw your sticks baby throw your stones / You won’t break my heart if you break my bones.”

‘Let It Go’ may be indelibly imprinted on the consciousness of an entire generation that grew up with Frozen, but it is perhaps Drama Queen that sees Menzel at her absolute best. It is a beguiling album that hits the right spot on multiple counts. A collection of music that allows you to joyfully dance the night away, find a mirror to your own experiences in Menzel’s tales of love gone wrong and rising from the ashes, or cherishing it as a love letter to the LGBTQI+ community it is an album you will want to return to again and again. We recently sat down with Menzel to chat all about the creation of Drama Queen.

Hi Idina, so lovely to meet you. You’re new album Drama Queen is of course out today, it is incredible. I've been dancing the hell out of it. Talk to me about the creation or the desire about going into this gem.
Honestly, I didn't want to overthink my next album, I just wanted to do music that I love. Whenever I'm in London, I go and I surprise everyone at one in the morning at the club Heaven. I just have the most fun, the energy's magnetic and we sing together, we scream, we laugh, we cry, reminisce and everybody's tight up against the stage. So I want to write and record music that could bring me back to those scenarios. All the iconic women that I love Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, even Cher got back to dance music. Everyone's had that moment, it's believable and it's an organic transition.

Absolutely. You've nailed it there as well with your desire to make it a disco album for those moments you had at G.A.Y. and of course, you opened up Hollywood Pride earlier this year, because disco was born out of social injustice. But it was also very quickly put away, almost forced away by the haters.
Yes, it was. Nile Rodgers is the first person I went to, to ask his opinion on whether or not I could do an album like this. He is a friend of mine, and he music directed some projects for me. He knows that better than anybody, being the godfather of disco, and then having times change and all of a sudden, he has to recreate himself. He's seen that exact thing that you're talking about happen, firsthand. He was so supportive and thought it was a perfect next step for me, and it was one of the great moments for me to be in the studio with him writing and recording.

I imagine that you've both had a very, very similar trajectory in that reinvention. His I guess was forced very quickly when disco died, but you were stepping away from your theatrical, and so there's a huge reinvention happening there and what better person to team up with?
Yes, except I will correct you because I used to say the same thing that you're saying - reinvention. But the truth is, for me, this is less a reinvention and more an acceptance of all of who I am, which is why I call it Drama Queen. It's just that I'm in a box in a place that people, want to neatly wrap me up in. And they have to be gently nudged to listen with fresh ears. At this age, I've learned that all of these journeys I've gone on creatively all make up who I am as a person and as an artist, as a human being and so if I was only doing one thing the whole time, it wouldn't be who I am. This music is a celebration of all of that, of all those dynamics and colours of who we all are, which is why I think it resonates with the queer community and the LGBTQ+ friends and family I have, because there are similarities in those themes.

There's obviously disco in this album, but it's very modern, it's a dance album. And I love the way they're both so fused. I've gotta say my favourite track is 'Beast'.
Yes! That's one of mine, thank you.

This is like the track of my heart. Genres today are becoming less of a thing, so it must have been so fun to go ‘this is where we start, this is the foundation, but this is where I want to go with it.’ How did you approach the style of the album?
There's the retro disco that really feels like the the sounds of the time and then there's the inspired by disco and that hybrid and combining the classic sounds with more contemporary sounds, and that's me just putting myself in the hands of great producers and songwriters and allowing them to surround me with the right sounds, highlight my voice and my personality and my flaws and imperfections and everything and make them all just one perfectly imperfect album.

You've also got your dance floor sob on this album with 'Funny Kind Of Lonely', they're always the best songs, but this one kills it. It starts with like an Olivia Newton John quality, and then we're suddenly bawling our eyes out on a modern day dancefloor.
I love that you brought that song up. I love it so much. I worked with Jake Shears on this album, and he's become a good friend of mine. We wrote the single 'Dramatic' together and then the song you're talking about now as well. We wrote both of them in a matter of two days, where none of us slept and we just made music together. We didn't overthink it, we just kind of went with it and I love it so much. It's really about taking the risk to allow yourself to be loved.

I think it's beautiful. It's such a visual album as well when you listen to it. There's such a tenderness on the dance floor that is sometimes forgotten, but I feel like you really encapsulate it in this album and possibly because it was inspired by those nights at G.A.Y.,  inspired by those nights out with people that had been and felt like social outcasts at a time where the lights are off and the disco balls are going, everyone’s welcome.
Tenderness. That's funny, you don't often think that way when you hear like four on the floor and the bass and the drums. But it's true because it because there can be a loneliness even when you're surrounded by tonnes of strangers. This music is for everyone, you know. It's for all of us that want to dance in our living room. I hope it reflects the the joy and the triumph and the the love that the queer community has and in this heroic way that they meet this adversity and outrage with with just such optimism and hope you know. It's always been so inspiring to me and so this is the perfect culmination of that.

More of Women In Pop and Idina Menzel coming soon…

Drama Queen is out now via BMG. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Idina Menzel, you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.