There is a shitty little moment when something disturbing flashes across your screen and your thumb stops for a second longer than it fucking should. That numbness is the fucking problem izzi drags into the light on ‘Make Me Watch’. The alt-pop track looks at sexual violence and coercion as they become easier to encounter online, especially when women are reduced to content instead of people. She writes from inside the imagery letting it get ugly enough that you have to confront what those fantasies are asking women to endure and it’s that contradiction that makes the experience even more unsettling because the song keeps pulling you in while your brain is processing something horrific. I do not want this song disappearing into the same feed it is criticizing. izzi wants you paying attention, and the subject deserves that attention.
The production makes ‘Make Me Watch’ deliberately uncomfortable. izzi wrote the song herself and produced it, then recorded the track independently as well. Instead of giving the subject a bleak soundtrack, she puts these lyrics against an upbeat dance instrumental, letting something immediately accessible carry material that becomes increasingly disturbing. That contrast is the whole damn trap. “I wrote, recorded and produced ‘Make Me Watch’ to draw attention to the rising trend of sexual violence, coercion and degradation towards women, and to encourage conversations that aren’t happening enough,” izzi explains. “Setting the sombre lyrics against an upbeat dance instrumental reflects the disturbing contrast between how serious these issues are and how normalised they’ve become. As a songwriter, I don’t want to shy away from uncomfortable topics. Music has the power to communicate emotions beyond words, raise awareness and help people feel less alone.” She built the discomfort into the music instead of leaving the lyrics to carry it alone.
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She starts with “Drag me down to the depths / So I feel it / Both hands on my neck and I breathe in / Smoke strong back step / Filling up my mind,” then moves almost immediately into “Open up my mouth so I taste it.” There is no comfortable distance between izzi and the violence she is describing. The first verse traps you inside an experience where control has already been taken from her and even basic bodily autonomy feels compromised. The song is fucking hard to hear closely because she forces you to sit with the violation instead of letting the imagery pass as something provocative.
In the chorus “I can see your fantasy / Put me in the front row / I feel it” turns watching into part of what is happening to her. Then she sings “show me what you wanna / Do to me / Meet in the mirror / Mean it / Turn my head back / Hold me still / And make me watch” and the power shifts in a nastier direction here. She is being forced to witness her own degradation from the outside – turning the sexual scenario into something closer to self-erasure. The title becomes the mechanism behind the song’s larger argument – showing how repeated exposure can make violence feel consumable enough to pass as ordinary entertainment.
By the next section, the screen itself enters the story through “Tied down like a tattoo / Eyes rolled back so nice / From the rear-view / Take me through the wall / Kiss kiss / Like the blonde you keep / On your laptop screen.” izzi follows with “I can be that girl / Watch this / How I move my hips / Get you all excited,” which makes the performance even sadder. Now the source of the expectation comes into focus. He has absorbed a sexual script from online content and she starts molding herself around it, which is where the song’s critique gets especially ugly. Her body becomes something she feels pressured to perform with instead of inhabit for herself. The fucking script was written before she entered the room.
Near the end the imagery starts showing what that performance costs all involved. “Diamonds cut my emaciated body / So pretty with it doesn’t even bother me” puts beauty beside damage until the two almost occupy the same image. Then “Can’t meet rent / Oh baby it’s a spiral” widens the fallout before “make me watch / That just can’t be me” sounds like recognition finally breaking through and the realization is jarring. The ugliest turn comes with “Broke down for you / ‘Baby its foreplay’ / First time that you / Promised you’d love me.” By this point her sense of self and financial stability are collapsing under the same pressure and the final turn is especially vicious because abuse is being sold back to her as intimacy with affection used as the bait that keeps her attached. That shit is bleak because the manipulation depends on making cruelty feel emotionally desirable.
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izzi is an independent singer-songwriter, producer and composer from Hampshire who has built her work around creative control and emotionally difficult writing. She has opened for Paris Paloma on her debut UK tour and received airplay from BBC Introducing, giving her music an audience beyond the independent scene she is building herself. Her role on ‘Make Me Watch’ also extends across the recording process, which matters on a song where the relationship between the lyrics and music is so intentional. She is clearly comfortable using pop structures to carry subjects that deserve more than a disposable listen. That instinct gives her room to make accessible music without treating the audience like we cannot handle the fucking conversation underneath it.
Back on that screen, the disturbing image does not disappear because somebody swiped past it. ‘Make Me Watch’ makes that reflex harder to ignore by turning watching itself into part of the story. izzi leaves you with the woman inside the fantasy and the cost of asking her to become it. The beat keeps moving while ‘Make Me Watch’ forces you to recognize why your thumb stopped in the first place and how fucked up it is that this kind of violence has become so easy to encounter.
