Good Luck is Debby Friday's exhilarating quest for self-discovery

Toronto-based singer and producer Debby Friday's debut album, Good Luck, is one of the 10 shortlisted albums vying for this year's Polaris Music Prize. CBC Music's Shortlist Shortcut series is back again this summer to help music fans discover the key details about all 10 records. 

Dig into the stories behind the album, the tracks you need to know, and the perfect summer activities to complement your listening below.

You can also listen to The Ten radio special on the album. 

Artist: 

Debby Friday.

Album: 

Good Luck.

Polaris Music Prize history: 

This is Debby Friday's first appearance on the short list. 

Story behind the nominated album: 

Good Luck arrived four years after Debby Friday's last output, 2019's Death Drive. That EP and its predecessor, 2018's BitchPunk, provided fertile ground to nurture and experiment with her nascent producer skills. As a teenager, Friday had been fully enthralled by Montreal's rave scene and became a fixture in it by the time she was university age. In 2017, after DJing for a little under a year, inspired by all the artists and musicians she was encountering, she decided to teach herself to produce. 

In an interview with NME, Friday spoke about the importance of self-producing all her music: "[It's] really important to me because it's my voice, my sonic voice … I want people to feel me in the sounds." The cacophonous feast that is Good Luck pulls from a range of influences — punk to techno, hardstyle to blues — and it all works together thanks to Friday's clear vision.

Good Luck is a wild ride through Friday's psyche, full of contradictions and revelations. The album centres on self-discovery; feeling lost and not running from it, but embracing that sense of unease. With Good Luck, Friday was writing to a past version of herself, from the other end of her healing journey. In 2018, she left Montreal for Vancouver for a master of fine arts, and to address mental health and substance abuse issues. She channelled the darker parts of herself into her music, and found cathartic release. Friday is deeply versed in philosophy and psychology, including Carl Jung's idea of the shadow self, and told Line of Best Fit how they find their way into her music: "If you don't face your shadow — the ugly and disgusting parts of yourself, the parts that you're ashamed of — then you're going to have a lot of issues in life." 

While writing the album, she had a prophetic belief that everything she dreamed of was about to click into place. Since Good Luck came out in March, Friday has received acclaim from international media, toured Europe and Australia, and been shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize — all in four months. It's safe to say the prophecy has been realized. 

Notable players: 

Friday co-produced the album with Juno Award- and Polaris Prize-nominated composer-producer Graham Walsh, a founding member of Toronto group Holy F--k, who has worked with Alvvays, Lights, F--ked Up and Hannah Georgas.

Standout songs: 

'So Hard to Tell'

A left-field lead single for an artist who's known for barking self-assuredly over slashing industrial beats, "So Hard to Tell" seemed to suggest a brand new Debby Friday era when it dropped in January. With its wistful vocals and vulnerable lyricism, it invokes the listlessness, the confusion, the quest for understanding that propels the whole record. 

'I Got It'

This pulsing, head-knocking banger featuring Uñas (Chris Vargas of Montreal's Pelada) is an unadulterated dose of pure confidence. A cocksure reminder of one's own prowess and capability — as Friday sings in the first verse, "I'm the master, baby." Many of the album's songs are two sides of a coin, and "I Got It" following "So Hard to Tell" is one such example: it seems to exist in direct response to the anxiety and uncertainty of the preceding song. 

'What a Man'

Dark and foreboding, "What a Man" packs a powerful punch. The guitarist, Will Balantyne, shredded so hard while recording that his fingers bled, and you can hear that urgency on the track. Friday wrote the song about past relationships with men who weren't worth all that she invested in them. Every moment of "What a Man" feels like the rallying cry of a woman who is ready to take her power back. 

Recommended if you like:

Death Grips, Sevdaliza, Crystal Castles, Clipping., and Sophie. 

Summer activity pairing:

Add the more high-octane tracks like "I Got It" to a pre-rave playlist to get your blood pumping, and play the more introspective tracks like "So Hard to Tell" and "Let U Down" in the moments of solitary reflection that follow the rave, as you catch the sunrise on the way home. 

Don't miss Shortlist Summer: a season-long showcase of the 10 albums shortlisted for the 2023 Polaris Music Prize. Read the weekly Polaris Shortlist Shortcut feature at cbcmusic.ca/polaris and tune into The Ten radio special every Sunday night at cbc.ca/listen.