Iggy Azalea - Digital Distortion (2017)

Amethyst Amelia Kelly was born 7 June 1990, and is known professionally as Iggy Azalea. At the age of 16, she moved from Australia to the United States in order to pursue a career in music. When she first arrived in the United States in 2006, she stayed in Miami, Florida, and afterward lived briefly in Houston, Texas. She then settled for a few years in Atlanta, Georgia, working with a member of the rap collective Dungeon Family named Backbone, and during that period she met future collaborators FKi and Natalie Sims. On 27 September 2011, Azalea released her first full-length project, a mixtape titled 'Ignorant Art', including her songs 'Pussy' and 'My World', for which she released a video featuring a cameo appearance from character actor and former wrestler Tiny Lister, which earned her more attention due to its rising popularity online. In December 2011, Azalea revealed she would release her debut studio album, 'The New Classic', as soon as she signed a major record label deal, with Interscope Records being her preferred choice, but Interscope were not happy with her insistence that T.I. was to be an ongoing part of her deal, and so she opted not to sign with the major label and stay independently signed to Grand Hustle Records, and the release of her first album was postponed. An EP, 'Glory', was released on 30 July 2012, as a stop-gap before the album, and a second mixtape 'Trapgold', produced entirely by Diplo and FKi, emerged in October 2012. In January and February 2013, Azalea worked on tour while still working on her upcoming singles, and a proposed summer release of 'The New Classic'. On 13 February 2013, it was announced that she had signed a record deal with Mercury Records,  and he debut album was slated for an October 2013 release, but in an interview with Australia's Herald Sun she revealed that due to other commitments, such as supporting Beyoncé on her Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, her record label would not allow her to release it until March 2014. In February 2014, it was announced that she would be releasing a new single titled 'Fancy', featuring English singer-songwriter Charli XCX, going on to become Azalea's most successful single to date, and her first to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100. After much delay and speculation, 'The New Classic' was finally released on 21 April 2014, debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 chart, and in May 'Fancy' reached number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. In January 2015 she announced that she had started to work on her second studio album, and in May she released a duet with Britney Spears titled 'Pretty Girls', although later that month she cancelled her up-coming The Great Escape Tour, as she wanted a new tour to be planned around her new album, which was to released in 2016. 

In June, when asked details on her new music, she explained she had scrapped six months of work to start from scratch, and in October she revealed the initial title of her second album was to be 'Digital Distortion'. It marked her reunion with D.R.U.G.S., the production team behind her 2011 breakthrough mixtape 'Ignorant Art', and it included collaborations with artists such as rappers YG, Jeremih, DJ/producer Zedd, Brazilian singer Anitta and others. The project's lead single 'Team' was released on 18 March 2016, along with a dance video, and after replacing Chris Isaak as a judge on eighth season of The X Factor Australia, she explained that she was delaying the release of her album to 2017, after ending the relationship with her fiancé Nick Young. In November 2017, Azalea stated that she was not allowed to release any music until January 2018, as she had signed with a new label, Island Records, and she also revealed that the title of her second album had changed to 'Surviving The Summer'. By June 2018 the album had become an EP, and it was released on 3 August 2018, debuting at number 144 on the Billboard 200. In November 2018 she left Island Records to form her own label 'New Classic Records', and in February 2019 she announced that she had completed work on her second studio album 'In My Defense', finally confirming that 'Digital Distortion' had been scrapped. Reasons for the cancellation of the record include the numerous delays since recording started in 2015, the three underwhelming singles in 'Team', 'Switch' and 'Mo Bounce', and the change in her record label from Def Jam to Island. Some of the intended songs were posted for free download, including 'Middle Man', '7Teen', 'Elephant' and 'Azillion', while the three singles were officially released, and other songs hinted at inclusion included 'Savior', 'Sexy' and 'Higher'. Many old tracks were incorrectly labelled as leaks from the album, such as 'Down South', 'Slo.' and 'Demons', while others like 'Miami' were thought to be lost but have since surfaced. For this reconstruction I've used the three singles, which we know were intended for the album, plus the best of the remaining leaked recordings, to piece together an approximation of what 'Digital Distortion' might have sounded like had it appeared as intended in 2017.  

Track listing

01 Team
02 Saviour
03 Sexy (feat. French Montana)
04 Elephant (feat. YG)
05 Mo Bounce
06 I'm Nasty

07 Azillion
08 Middle Man
09 Switch
10 Miami
11 Three Day Weekend
12 7Teen
13 Boom Boom