Remember Caroline Pennell from The Voice? She went on to write songs for Demi Lovato.

Writing for other artists between 2016 and 2020

Ades said in a later interview that writing for other people had felt more comfortable and had developed between 2016 and 2020. Her role was to help another person put an experience into a song, starting a session by getting to know the other artist and finding the story they wanted to tell. She described the Demi Lovato album sessions as collaborative, with close friends among the writers.

Telling her own stories as Carol Ades in 2021

She began releasing music as Carol Ades with I Can’t Wait to Be British in 2021, later explaining that she had missed telling her own stories during the 2020 shutdown. Returning to her songs gave her a place to ask what she wanted to say. The debut single grew from sessions with friends, where Ades said she arrived with an idea about wanting to be British and the verses came quickly. The group returned to the chorus the next day and changed it.

Her debut Carol Ades EP, Through, followed in 2021. In an interview published the next January, she described its songs as different moments within the same experience and said writing had helped her work through it.

Bringing her songwriting to the stage with WILD

At the same time, Pennell was helping to create her first theater project, WILD: A Musical Becoming, for American Repertory Theater, writing music and lyrics for characters within a musical story. The invitation grew from an existing working relationship with Justin Tranter, who wrote music and lyrics with Pennell. Tranter said they had recently written songs with Pennell when they asked her to join the project, wanting a young woman’s perspective for a story about a mother, her daughter, and the climate crisis.

Five years of songs kept for herself on Late Start

Late Start arrived in September 2024, gathering songs Ades had collected over five years and kept for herself. The material included songs written during breaks from work for others; some went to other artists, and the album became her debut album as Carol Ades after years of writing and earlier releases. She had talked with her manager about the pressure to save a debut album for a large launch, and she decided to release the songs when she was ready to tell that story.

Leaning toward playful pop in 2026

Worst Person in the World followed as an EP in March 2026, with Ades saying in an interview later that month that she wanted this project to be more playful and lean further toward pop. She described returning to ideas and editing them more than she had in earlier sessions. She said the production for Normal Feelings eventually returned to the guitar demo from the first day of writing.