I quit a job over the phone from my bathroom floor with a full face of makeup on. The makeup part matters. I’d gotten ready for a Friday night out, caught my own eye in the mirror mid-lipstick and realized the woman looking back was too good to spend one more Monday shrinking for a manager who confused cruelty with standards. So I called him before the liner dried and said my piece in one breath. Then I went out anyway, danced until 2am on my first night of unemployment and slept like a fucking millionaire. Everyone asked about my backup plan and I told them she was already wearing the lipstick. Macy O and Shorty bottled that specific self-belief on ‘Energy,’ a dance-pop shot of pure forward motion, and I recognized the feeling before the first chorus finished.
‘Energy’ is Macy O’s brand new dance-pop single, made with producer Shorty, and the whole record runs on self-assurance with its foot down. This is music about wanting more and going after it in heels, ambition dressed up as a night out. The pairing works from the first bar, and the production stays bright and driving underneath her from start to finish. Every verse feeds the momentum and the pace never drops.
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The production is built for the hour when you’re half dressed and fully convinced. A driving pulse keeps the tempo up and Macy rides it with a vocal that has theatre kid discipline and hot girl delivery. She sounds certain of every word, and certainty is the sexiest register a woman can sing in. I played this getting ready on Saturday and ran twenty minutes over because the strut demanded a damn rehearsal.
Her chemistry with Shorty carries the whole fucking thing. A producer who understands his artist stays out of her way at the right moments, and Shorty frames Macy’s voice while keeping the floor moving under her. You can hear two people who trust each other on this record. That trust reads as heat, the same way the best dance partners look a little bit in love for three minutes whether they are or not, and the track glides on it.
Confidence this loud is contagious as hell, which is the point. ‘Energy’ works because ambition sounds so much better with a beat under it, and Macy sings about wanting more with the appetite of a woman already reaching for it. The song hands you drive as a feeling instead of a lecture. I left it running while answering emails I’d been avoiding for a week, the most productive shit this playlist has ever accomplished.
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Macy O comes out of Shropshire with musical theatre training from childhood and the kind of stage presence that gets talked about, sharing bills with Sam Ryder and Scouting For Girls along the way. Her lane is dance-pop with real soul in the vocal, and the industry noticed, editorial love from Apple Music plus radio backing from BBC Introducing. In 2025 she cracked the UK dance scene properly when ‘My Desire (Take Me Higher)’ with James Revitt and Connor B climbed to No. 4 on Music Week’s Upfront Club Chart, a hell of a flex for an up-and-comer. Shorty is Anthony Shorter, an award-winning producer with a BA Honours in music production and engineering and co-owner of Moose Records, the Shropshire creative hub known for building new artists from the ground up. ‘Energy’ arrives through So, Let’s Talk and Moose Records while Macy tours it across the country, so catch her while the rooms are still intimate.
That manager, by the way, had to hire two whole-ass people to replace me, a detail my old coworkers still serve me at happy hour. I built something better within the year and the woman in the bathroom mirror takes full credit. Macy O and Shorty made ‘Energy’ from that same conviction, the sound of betting on yourself and collecting. The lipstick knew what it was doing, and now there’s a song that agrees with her.
