“Touch” by Shura, Thursday, February 17, 2022

Two years before her debut album was released, Shura's debut single, "Touch," began generating acclaim across the Internet. Working with guitarist and vocalist of the indie rock band Athlete, Joel Pott, Shura began co-producing her album, Nothing's Real. Shura played the keyboards and synthesizers on the record and co-directed the music video for "Touch," which features her twin brother, Nicholas. The single was re-released along with a remix of the track in 2016 before the release of Nothing's Real. Today, "Touch" is Shura's most streamed song on Spotify.

I ONLY NEED YOU TO BE FRENCH WITH ME. Born to an English father and a Russian mother Aleksandra Lilah Yakunina-Denton and her brother Nicholas were raised in Manchester, UK. Aleksandra, better known by her stage name, Shura, started playing guitar at the age of 13. By 26, she was gaining popularity in the UK. The video for "Touch," which features lots of kissing between people of different genders and sexualities, prompted a Manchester journalist to ask the singer to define her sexuality. The singer told Vice, although the headline read "Shura comes out before Manchester" [concert], she says, "I didn’t come out! [The journalist] just asked me if I was gay and I said yes." While Shura identifies as a lesbian, she told Mancunian Matters that there is a "massive spectrum for everyone" and that "there are many kinds of love." She goes on to say that the video "didn't feel like a political statement at the time" because she was simply filming the sexuality as she experienced from being part of the LGBTQ+ community. On a small budget with only some actors and a video camera, Shura's music video tells the complication of love and break ups as a human experience. And that human experience helped to spread the video around the Internet, especially among the LGBTQ+ community.

THERE'S A LOVE BETWEEN US STILL. While Nothing's Real holds a high Meta-critic score of 79 percent, Joe Levy's Rolling Stone  review knocks the album for the ambiguity of gender in the songs, calling it "a map to a treasure that's never there." It seems that homophobia was a big factor in this album not fully becoming the "Madonna for millennials" that Vice praised her as, as far as her success in America. Shura's UK popularity didn't spread to the US other than the Dance chart. Her UK fame, though, sparked the attention of Mumford & Sons, who covered Shura's track "2Shy." "Touch" appears in the second season of Sex Education in a make-out scene between Otis and Ola. Just as the song's music video shows how fluid sexuality is, the Netflix original series explores the complex sexualities of British teenagers. Sex, attraction, and relationships can be as complicated as this song's subject--trying to be friends with an ex. Shura's music reflects that complication, mostly avoiding pronouns--with the exception of "Indecision," talking about a boy. All we need is for her to come out with a catchy third album. She's due at any time to follow up her 2019 forevher.

 

Read “Touch” by Shura on Genius