Gracie Abrams: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

At the beginning of the year, Gracie Abrams found herself in a rare bind. For one of the first times in her life, she says, “I felt like I had nothing to say.”

The 25-year-old musician had scheduled a week to spend at Long Pond Studio working on new music with her longtime collaborator, Aaron Dessner, when she realized that she was at a loss for inspiration — a frustrating position for Abrams, who isn’t just one of Gen Z’s most prolific songwriters, but has also been writing songs since she was a kid. “I was actually quite aggravated with myself that I had booked that time,” she says now, months later. “I went into it being like, ‘Oh, I’m going to waste Aaron’s time.’ I felt a little bit disconnected from myself.”

It’s understandable why Abrams might have felt at loose ends. After releasing her second album, the Dessner-produced The Secret of Us, last June, she went from the cusp of main-pop-girl status to bona fide stardom and has careened ever since on a career-affirming thrill ride that refuses to slow down. The witty, self-effacing album full of catchy acoustic anthems and searing appraisals of romantic disappointments debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and Abrams’ momentum only snowballed that fall when its deluxe version produced her first top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit, “That’s So True,” a snarky post-breakup kiss-off that became inescapable on TikTok. She has also been traveling basically nonstop for years, piggybacking a catalytic stint opening for Taylor Swift — her childhood hero — on The Eras Tour with her own sold-out fall run of U.S. theaters; she’ll play North American arenas this summer, including two nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Read the full Billboard cover story here.