\u201cI could literally see the stadium lights \u2014 there were drones everywhere and people honking and lighting things on fire,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI was just like, Why, L.A. \u2014 why?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her suffering in a city she once called home was worth it: \u201cFatal Optimist,\u201d the LP Diaz eventually completed in time to release this month, is one of 2025\u2019s most gripping \u2014 a bravely stripped-down set of songs about heartbreak and renewal arranged for little more than Diaz\u2019s confiding voice and her folky acoustic guitar.<\/p>\n
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In the album\u2019s opener, \u201cHope Less,\u201d she wonders how far she might be willing to go to accommodate a lover\u2019s neglect; \u201cGood Liar\u201d examines the self-deception necessary to keep putting up with it. Yet Diaz also thinks through the harm she\u2019s doled out, as in \u201cFlirting\u201d (\u201cI can\u2019t change what happened, the moment was just what it was \/ Nothing to me, something to you\u201d).<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the gutting \u201cHeavy Metal,\u201d in which she acknowledges that enduring the pain of a breakup has prepared her to deal with the inevitability of the next one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis record is me facing myself and going, \u2018I have to stay in my body for this entire song,\u2019 \u201d Diaz, 39, says on a recent afternoon during a return trip to L.A.<\/p>\n
What makes the unguardedness of the music even more remarkable is that \u201cFatal Optimist\u201d comes more than a decade and a half into a twisty-turny career that might\u2019ve left Diaz more leathered than she sounds here.<\/p>\n
Beyond making her own albums \u2014 \u201cFatal Optimist\u201d is her sixth since she moved to Nashville in 2008 \u2014 she\u2019s written songs for commercials and TV shows and for other artists including Maren Morris<\/a> and Little Big Town; she\u2019s sung backup for Miranda Lambert and Parker McCollum<\/a> and even played guitar in Harry Styles\u2019 band on tour in 2023.<\/p>\n Yet in a tender new song like \u201cFeel Something,\u201d about longing to \u201cbe someone who doesn\u2019t know your middle name,\u201d Diaz\u2019s singing reveals every bruise.<\/p>\n \u201cMusic is a life force for Madi,\u201d says Bethany Cosentino, the Best Coast frontwoman who tapped Diaz as a songwriting partner for her 2023 solo album, \u201cNatural Disaster.\u201d \u201cShe has to do it, and it\u2019s so authentic and so real and so raw because it\u2019s not coming from this place of \u2018Well, guess I gotta go make another record.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf she doesn\u2019t put those emotions somewhere,\u201d Cosentino adds, \u201cI think she\u2019ll implode.\u201d<\/p>\n Which doesn\u2019t mean that putting out a record as vulnerable as \u201cFatal Optimist\u201d hasn\u2019t felt scary.<\/p>\n \u201cI was gonna say it\u2019s like the emperor\u2019s new clothes,\u201d Diaz says with a laugh over coffee in Griffith Park. \u201cBut I know I\u2019m not wearing any clothes.\u201d Dressed in shorts and a denim shirt, her hair tucked beneath a ball cap, she sits at a picnic table outside a caf\u00e9 she liked when she lived in L.A. from 2012 to 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a second, I was like, Damn, I wish I\u2019d brought my hiking shoes \u2014 could\u2019ve gone up to the top,\u201d she says. \u201cI would absolutely have done that as my masochistic 28-year-old self. Hike in the heat of the day? Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n Diaz points to a couple of touchstones for her LP\u2019s bare-bones approach, among them Patty Griffin\u2019s \u201cLiving With Ghosts\u201d \u2014 \u201ca star in Orion\u2019s Belt,\u201d as she puts it \u2014 and \u201cobviously Joni Mitchell\u2019s \u2018Blue<\/a>,\u2019 \u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s just a duh.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Mitchell, Diaz achieves a clarity of thought in her songs that only intensifies the heartache; also like Mitchell (not to mention Taylor Swift), she can describe a partner\u2019s failings with unsparing precision.<\/p>\n \u201cSome \u2018I\u2019m sorry\u2019s\u2019 are so selfish \/ And you just act like you can\u2019t help it,\u201d she sings in \u201cWhy\u2019d You Have to Bring Me Flowers,\u201d one of a handful of what she jokingly calls \u201cfolk diss tracks\u201d on \u201cFatal Optimist.\u201d It goes on: \u201cBulls\u2014 smile, in denial \/ We\u2019ve been circling the block \/ We\u2019ve been in a downward spiral.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are definitely a couple songs on this record where I felt apologetic as I was writing it,\u201d she says. \u201cThen when I finished it was just like: It had to be done.\u201d She grins. \u201cThey\u2019re tough,\u201d she says of her exes. \u201cThey\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked whether any of her songs express her feelings in a way she wasn\u2019t capable of doing with the ex in question, she nods.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say I could get about halfway there in real life,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like I couldn\u2019t finish the thought within the relationship, and that was the signal that we couldn\u2019t go onward. Or that I couldn\u2019t go onward.\u201d<\/p>\n Has writing about love taught her anything about herself and what she wants?<\/p>\n \u201cI travel a lot \u2014 I\u2019m all over the place,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I really like to come and go as I please. But it\u2019s funny: In retrospect, I think maybe I was chasing a relationship that was a little more traditional, even though I don\u2019t know if I can actually be that way. So that\u2019s a weird thing to be aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n Madi Diaz in Pasadena.<\/p>\n (Annie Noelker \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Diaz grew up home-schooled in a Quaker household in rural Pennsylvania and learned to play piano and guitar when she was young; when she was a teenager, her talent took her to Philadelphia\u2019s Paul Green School of Rock, whose founder was later accused<\/a> of abuse and sexual misconduct by dozens of former students, including Diaz. (\u201cIt was a really toxic place,\u201d she told<\/a> the New York Times.)<\/p>\n She studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston before dropping out and heading to Nashville, where she started making her name as a singer-songwriter operating at the intersection of country and pop. After a few years of fruitful grinding, she came to L.A. to \u201csee how high the ceiling was,\u201d she says, and quickly fell in with a group of musician friends.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n