After gaining notoriety as an original artist on YouTube, Grace VanderWaal broke out when she appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2016 at the age of twelve, singing her original song, “I Don’t Know My Name”. She received a Golden Buzzer and international fame, and in December, her debut EP, Perfectly Imperfect, was released via Columbia Records. A fantastic start for a young talent, in 2017, she followed up with her first full-length album, Just the Beginning, which stood out with a blend of soulful songwriting, ukulele charm, and a voice that did not come from a thirteen-year-old.
Pushing forward into 2019, VanderWaal released the EP Letters Vol. 1, which showcased further maturity, and also spent time on the road touring with Florence and the Machine. Still growing, in 2020, she made her acting debut as Susan “Stargirl” Caraway in Disney+’s Stargirl, opening the door for more acting with the 2024 film Megalopolis, which was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
An interesting turn in VanderWaal’s career was that the music was not forgotten, as she continued to release songs and had two of them featured in Megalopolis. However, it has been nearly six years since putting out an EP, and almost eight years since a follow-up to 2017’s Just the Beginning. Well, the wait is over, and on April 4, 2025, VanderWaal finally released her full-length sophomore album, entitled Childstar.
Released through Pulse Records, Childstar is a nine-track exploration of being a child star in the spotlight since the age of twelve, starting with the disillusionment of fame, which all child stars discuss as they grow through the entertainment machine. In just over twenty-four minutes, VanderWaal is to Pop what the Ramones were to Punk: hit ‘em hard, hit ‘em fast, and get out.
Beginning with “Proud,” the track critiques the false promises used to draw kids in, but flips the script when they have assimilated said kids into the entertainment machine. This is while “Brand New” continues the downward spiral as VanderWaal sings about the loneliness of ‘fame’ once a kid is in the machine and the struggles of moving past childhood amidst it all.
Later on, the song “Homesick” is just that, and VanderWaal sings about being disillusioned by the ‘non-stop chase.’ On the other side, “What I Left of Me” is about losing herself in said chase. Then, VanderWaal flips the script with tracks like “Call It What You Want” and “Babydoll,” expressing that she is clearly over being the ‘thing,’ or the commodity. Powerful, she reclaims and fearlessly reinvents herself while “Beg For It,” “Behavioral Problems,” and “Fade” put a nail in the coffin of her old complacency, and spell out how things are going to go going forward.
VanderWaal describes Childstar as running “the course of a birth to a death,” using songwriting as catharsis for trauma that surfaced unexpectedly during the creative process. This is something that happens with just about any artist who truly lives what they do…even if it is subconsciously. With that in mind, to bring out an album that many people will hear, including the people she is singing about, at twenty-one, deserves extraordinary praise.
In addition to the album, she dropped a companion film, Childstar: Final Act, a choreographed short with performances of five tracks. Beautifully done and worth watching, it can be found on YouTube.
Expounding on her drive for doing Childstar, VanderWaal proves to herself and the world that she is a growing young woman who is not here to dwell on the past, but blaze an independent path forward. Here’s to looking to the future for Grace VanderWaal, with Cryptic Rock giving Childstar 5 of 5 stars.
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